“About that newspaper, Morton,” she continued, ignoring him.  “I’ve decided that I’ll just hang on to my stock.  You’ve built up the ‘Courier’ better than I expected, and that last statement showed it to be doing fine.  I don’t know any place right now where I can do as well with the money.  You see I’ve got about all the farms I can handle at my age, and it will be some fun to have a hand in running a newspaper.  I want you to tell ’em down at the ‘Courier’ office—­what’s his name?  Atwill?  Well, you tell him I want this ‘Stop, Look, Listen’ business stopped.  If you can’t think of anything smarter to do than that, you ’d better quit.  You had no business to turn a newspaper against a man who owns half of it without giving him a chance to get off the track.  You whistled, Morton, after you had pitched him and his side-bar buggy into the ditch and killed his horse.”

“But who had put him on the track?  I hadn’t!  He’d been running over the state for two years, to my knowledge, trying to undermine me.  I was only giving him in broad daylight what he was giving me in the dark.  You don’t understand this, Aunt Sally; he’s been playing on your feelings.”

“Morton Bassett, there ain’t a man on earth that can play on my feelings.  I didn’t let him jump on you; and I don’t intend to let you abuse him.  I’ve told you to stop nagging him, but I haven’t any idea you’ll do it.  That’s your business.  If you want a big bump, you go on and get it.  About this newspaper, I’m going to keep my shares, and I’ve told Edward that you wouldn’t use the paper as a club on him while I was interested in it.  You can print all the politics you want, but it must be clean politics, straight out from the shoulder.”

He had lapsed into sullen silence, too stunned to interrupt the placid flow of her speech.  She had not only meddled in his affairs in a fashion that would afford comfort to his enemy, but she was now dictating terms—­this old woman whose mild tone was in itself maddening.  The fear of incurring his wife’s wrath alone checked an outburst of indignation.  In all his life no one had ever warned him to his face that he was pursuing a course that led to destruction.  He had always enjoyed her capriciousness, her whimsical humor, but there was certainly nothing for him to smile at in this interview.  She had so plied the lash that it cut to the quick.  His pride and self-confidence were deeply wounded;—­his wife’s elderly aunt did not believe in his omnipotence!  This was a shock in itself; but what fantastic nonsense was she uttering now?

“Since I bought that stock, Morton, I’ve been reading the ‘Courier’ clean through every day, and there are some things about that paper I don’t like.  I guess you and Edward Thatcher ain’t so particularly religious, and when you took hold of it you cut out that religious page they used to print every Sunday.  You better tell Atwill to start that up again.  I notice, too, that the ‘Courier’ sneaks in little stingers at