then one. He allowed to me that he was
liable to get stuck at fust, an' I reckoned he would. But I never said
nuthin' about it, nor ast no questions until to-day; an' this afternoon
I come in to look 'round, an' I says to him, 'What luck have you had
with your money? Git any bad?' I says. 'Wa'al,' he says, colorin' up a
little, 'I don't know how many I may have took in an' paid out agin
without knowin' it,' he says, 'but the' was a couple sent back from New
York out o' that package that went down last Friday.'"

"'What was they?' I says.

"'A five an' a ten,' he says.

"'Where be they?' I says.

"'They're in the draw there--they're ruther int'restin' objects of
study,' he says, kind o' laughin' on the wrong side of his mouth.

"'Countin' 'em in the cash?' I says, an' with that he kind o' reddened
up agin. 'No, sir,' he says, 'I charged 'em up to my own account, an'
I've kept 'em to compare with.'

"'You hadn't ought to done that,' I says.

"'You think I ought to 'a' put 'em in the fire at once?' says he.

"'No,' I says, 'that wa'n't what I meant. Why didn't you mix 'em up with
the other money, an' let 'em go when you was payin' out? Anyways,' I
says, 'you charge 'em up to profit an' loss if you're goin' to charge
'em to anythin', an' let me have 'em,' I says.

"'What'll you do with 'em?' he says to me, kind o' shuttin' his jaws
together.

"'I'll take care on 'em,' I says. 'They mayn't be good enough to send
down to New York,' I says, 'but they'll go around here all right--jest
as good as any other,' I says, 'long 's you keep 'em movin'.'"

"David Harum!" cried Polly, who, though not quite comprehending some of
the technicalities of detail, was fully alive to the turpitude of the
suggestion. "I hope to gracious he didn't think you was in earnest. Why,
s'pose they was passed around, wouldn't somebody git stuck with 'em in
the long run? You know they would." Mrs. Bixbee occasionally surprised
her brother with unexpected penetration, but she seldom got much
recognition of it.

"I see by the paper," he remarked, "that the' was a man died in
Pheladelphy one day last week," which piece of barefaced irrelevancy
elicited no notice from Mrs. Bixbee.

"What more did he say?" she demanded.

"Wa'al," responded Mr. Harum with a laugh, "he said that he didn't see
why I should be a loser by his mistakes, an' that as fur as the bills
was concerned they belonged to him, an' with that," said the narrator,
"Mister Man gi