have the property, and you have no way to raise the thirty thousand to get the property. Why not turn the option over to me without any more fooling?"
"Wait," replied the lawyer, smiling. He did not resent Wilder's eagerness to get the option, because he was frank and straightforward in his methods. But his one word was so far from encouraging that Wilder looked at him and shuddered involuntarily. Never in his experience had he encountered a man like this, who did n't know when he was beaten and could n't be cajoled or bulldozed. From that moment his fears grew, until he was forced to realize that in carrying out his clever scheme to oust his partner he had also ousted himself from a peculiarly profitable business enterprise.
Wilder was right in his statement that it had always been impossible to induce the cottagers to put any money
