"
"Oh, come now," protested Snaffle, "why don't you ask me to give it to
you as I did the other?"
"So delicate of him," murmured the widow, confidentially to the
universe at large, "to fling that at me."
"I ain't flinging it at you," Snaffle returned, unabashed. "But, come
now, let's talk business. If I give you an option on this, so long as
you are going to sell it at three dollars, of course you ought to pay
me more than the market price. I'll be d'ed if I let you have it less
than two and a half."
"One doesn't know which to admire most, Mr. Snaffle, your politeness to
ladies or your generosity."
"Oh, don't mention it," was the speculator's grinning reply. "Come,
now, don't be a pig. Twenty per cent profit ought to satisfy anybody."
"I'll give you two," said Mrs. Sampson, with feminine persistency.
Snaffle turned on his heel with a word seldom spoken in the presence of
ladies.
"Well, you might as well get out of this, then," he remarked,
brusquely. "You're a beauty, but you don't know anything about
business."
Amanda regarded him with an inscrutable glance for an instant,
evidently making up her mind that he meant what he said.
"Well," she observed; "if you want to rob me, I'm only a woman with
nobody to take my part, and I shall have to give you what you ask."
"Gad!" he ejaculated. "If one man in ten was as well able to take his
own part as you are, things 'd be some different from what they are
now.
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