It's a rough deal," I admits, "but one that's bein' pulled in the best
circles. War profits are what everybody seems to be out after these
days, and I don't see how you're going to stop it."

"I mean to try to stop Belcher, anyway," says Vee, tossin' her chin up.

"You ain't got much show," says I; "but go to it."

Just how much fight there was in Vee, though, I didn't have any idea of
until I saw her Monday evenin' after another meetin' of the League. It
seems she'd met this Mrs. Norton Plummer on her own ground and had
smeared her all over the map.

"What do you suppose she wanted to do?" demands Vee. "Pass more
resolutions! Well, I told her just what I thought of that. As well pin a
'Please-keep-out' notice on your door to scare away burglars as to send
resolutions to Belcher. And when I showed her what profits he was
making, item by item, she hadn't another word to say. Then I proposed my
plan."

"Eh?" says I. "What's it like?"

"We are going to start a store of our own," says Vee--just like that,
offhand and casual.

"You are!" says I. "But--but who's goin' to run it?"

"They made me chairman of the sub-committee," says Vee. "And then I made
them subscribe to a campaign fund. Five thousand. We raised it in as
many minutes. And now--well, I suppose I'm in for it."

"Listens that way to me," says I.

"Then I may as well begin," says she.

And say, there's nothin' draggy about Vee when she really goes over the
top. While I'm dressin' for dinner she calls up a real estate dealer and
leases a vacant store in the other end of the block from Belcher's.
Between the roast and salad she uses the 'phone some more and drafts
half a dozen young ladies from the Country Club set to act as relay
clerks. Later on in the evenin' she rounds up Major Percy Thomson, who's
been invalided home from the Quartermaster's Department on account of a
game knee, and gets him to serve as buyin' agent for a week or so. Her
next move is to charter a couple of three-ton motor-trucks to haul
supplies out from town; and when I went to sleep she was still jottin'
things down on a pad to be attended to in the mornin'.

For two or three days nothin' much seemed to happen. The windows of that
vacant store was whitened mysterious, carpenters were hammerin' away
inside, and now and then a truck backed up and was unloaded. But no
word was given out as to what was goin' to be sprung. Not until Friday
mornin'. Then the commuters on the 8.03 was