``And the joke of it is that the whole business
isn't costing me a cent.''
``Not a cent less than half a dozen or a dozen
millions,'' said Presbury.
``Not so much as that--not quite,'' protested the
delightedly sparkling little general. ``But what I
meant was that, as fast as these fellows spend, I go
down-town and make. Fact is, I'm a little better off
than I was when I started in to build.''
``Well, you didn't get any of MY money,'' laughed
Presbury. ``But I suppose pretty much everybody
else in the country must have contributed.''
General Siddall smiled. Mildred wondered whether
the points of his mustache and imperial would crack
and break of, if he should touch them. She noted that
his hair was roached absurdly high above the middle
of his forehead and that he was wearing the tallest heels
she had ever seen. She calculated that, with his hair
flat and his feet on the ground, he would hardly come
to her shoulder--and she was barely of woman's
medium height. She caught sight of his hands--the
square, stubby hands of a working man; the fingers
permanently slightly curved as by the handle of shovel
and pick; the skin shriveled but white with a ghastly,
sickening bleached white, the nails repulsively manicured
into long white curves.
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