u beat me upon the purchase of that Westmarsh property.
Very shrewd, indeed, Mr. Burnit; very like your father. I suppose that
now, if I wanted to buy it from you, I'd have to pay you a pretty
advance." And he rubbed his hands as if to invite the opening of
negotiations.

"It is not for sale," said Bobby, stiffening; "but I might consider a
proposition to buy your eight acres." He offered this suggestion with
reluctance, for he had no mind to enter transactions of any sort with
Silas Trimmer. Still, he recalled to himself with a sudden yielding to
duty, business is business, and his father would probably have waved
all personal considerations aside at such a point.

"Mine _is_ for sale," offered Silas, a trifle too eagerly, Bobby
thought.

"How much?" he asked.

"A thousand dollars an acre."

"I won't pay it," declared Bobby.

"Well," replied Mr. Trimmer with a deepening of that circular smile
which Bobby now felt sure was maliciously sarcastic, "by the time it
is drained it will be worth that to any purchaser."

"Suppose we drain it," suggested Bobby, holding both his temper and
his business object remarkably well in hand. "Will you stand your
share of the cost?"

"It strikes me as an entirely unnecessary expense at present," said
Silas and smiled again.

"Then it won't be drained," snapped Bobby.

Later in the evening he caught Silas laughing at him, his shoulders
heaving and every yellow fang protruding. The next morning, keeping
earlier hours than ever before in his life, Bobby was waiting outside
Jimmy Platt's door when that gentleman started to work.

"The first thing you do," he directed, still with a memory of that
aggravating laugh, "I want you to build a cement wall straight across
the north end of my Westmarsh property."

Mr. Platt smiled and shook his head.

"Evidently you can not buy that north eight acres, and don't intend to
drain it," he commented, stroking sagely the sparse beginning of those
slow professional whiskers. "It's your affair, of course, Mr. Burnit,
but I am quite sure that spite work in engineering can not be made to
pay."

"Nevertheless," insisted Bobby, "we'll build that wall."

The previous afternoon Jimmy Platt had made a scale drawing of the
property from city surveys, and now the two went over it carefully,
discussing it in various phases for fully an hour, proving estimates
of cost and general feasibility. At the conclusion of that time Bobby,
well pleased with h