" Thereafter, no fumes
of coffee were necessary to keep the widow awake for the remainder of
the night; and on Thursday morning before she presented herself at
Irons's office she had an interesting interview with no less a
personage than Mr. Erastus Snaffle himself.
Mrs. Sampson began by declaring that she wished to purchase a certain
amount of Princeton Platinum stock, but before long the need she felt
of having her feminine guile supported by masculine intelligence had
led her to make a clean breast of the situation. She showed Mr. Snaffle
Mr. Irons's note, calling his attention particularly to the ill-chosen
word "all" which seemed to her to afford the means of unloading
indefinitely at the expense of the absent financier. Her enthusiasm
received a cruel shock when Snaffle retorted with a burst of ill-bred
laughter,--
"Oh Lord! You must think Irons is a dog-goned fool!"
"But," the widow persisted, "it says 'all' the stock, doesn't it?"
"Do you think you could make his firm buy up all the Princeton on that
flimsy dodge?" retorted Snaffle contemptuously.
"We'll see," Amanda declared, nodding her head determinedly. "The
question is how much do you think they will stand? A man ought to know
that better than a woman."
A new look of cunning came into the fat face of the speculator, and his
numerous superfluous chins began to be agitated as if with excitement.
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