d wouldn't it be good pathos to have the butler aware of
his infirmity and knowing the greatest surgeons in the world can't help
him?"

"Well," Merton considered, "if I were you I shouldn't chance it. It
would be mere acrobatic humour. And why do you want any one to be funny
when you have a big gripping thing of love and hate like that? I don't
believe I'd have him cross-eyed. I'd have him elderly and simple and
dignified. And you don't want your audience to laugh, do you, when he
holds up both hands to show how shocked he is at the way things are
going on in that house?"

"Well, maybe I won't then. It was just a thought. I believe you have the
right instinct in those matters, Merton. I'll leave him as he is."

"Good-night, then," said Merton. "I got to be on the lot to-morrow. My
camera man's coming at two. Shooting some Western stuff."

"Oh, my! Really?"

Tessie gazed after him admiringly. He let himself into the dark store,
so lately the scene of his torment, and on the way to his little room
stopped to reach under the grocery counter for those hidden savings.
To-night he would add to them the fifteen dollars lavished upon him
by Gashwiler at the close of a week's toil. The money was in a tobacco
pouch. He lighted the lamp on his table, placed the three new bills
beside it and drew out the hoard. He would count it to confirm his
memory of the grand total.

The bills were frayed, lacking the fresh green of new ones; weary
looking, with an air of being glad to rest at last after much passing
from hand to hand as symbols of wealth. Their exalted present owner
tenderly smoothed cut several that had become crumpled, secured them in
a neat pile, adding the three recently acquired five-dollar bills,
and proceeded to count, moistening the ends of a thumb and finger in
defiance of the best sanitary teaching. It was no time to think of
malignant bacteria.

By his remembered count he should now be possessed of two hundred and
twelve dollars. And there was the two-dollar bill, a limp, gray thing,
abraded almost beyond identification. He placed this down first, knowing
that the remaining bills should amount to two hundred and ten dollars.
Slowly he counted, to finish with a look of blank, hesitating wonder. He
made another count, hastily, but taking greater care. The wonder grew.
Again he counted, slowly this time, so that there could be no doubt. And
now he knew! He possessed thirty-three dollars more than he had thought