o, an' mebbe I don't, but
anyways,' I says, '_you_ don't git it, nor wouldn't ever, for if I can't
make you sign over, I'll either do what I said or I'll back the widder
in a defence fer usury. Put that in your pipe an' smoke it,' I says.

"'What do you mean?' he says, gittin' half out his chair.

"'I mean this,' I says, 'that the fust six months the widder couldn't
pay she gin you ten dollars to hold off, an' the next time she gin you
fifteen, an' that you've bled her fer shaves to the tune of sixty odd
dollars in three years, an' then got your int'rist in full.'

"That riz him clean out of his chair," said David. "'She can't prove
it,' he says, shakin' his fist in the air.

"'Oh, ho! ho!' I says, tippin' my chair back agin the wall. 'If Mis'
Cullom was to swear how an' where she paid you the money, givin'
chapter an' verse, and showin' her own mem'randums even, an' I was to
swear that when I twitted you with gittin' it you didn't deny it, but
only said that she couldn't _prove_ it, how long do you think it 'ould
take a Freeland County jury to find agin ye? I allow, 'Zeke Swinney,' I
says, 'that you wa'n't born yestyd'y, but you ain't so old as you look,
not by a dum sight!' an' then how I did laugh!

"Wa'al," said David, as he got down off the stool and stretched himself,
yawning, "I guess I've yarned it enough fer one day. Don't fergit to
send Mis' Cullom that notice, an' make it up an' up. I'm goin' to git
the thing off my mind this trip."

"Very well, sir," said John, "but let me ask, did Swinney assign the
mortgage without any trouble?"

"O Lord! yes," was the reply. "The' wa'n't nothin' else fer him to do. I
had another twist on him that I hain't mentioned. But he put up a great
show of doin' it to obleege me. Wa'al, I thanked him an' so on, an' when
we'd got through I ast him if he wouldn't step over to the 'Eagil' an'
take somethin', an' he looked kind o' shocked an' said he never drinked
nothin'. It was 'gin his princ'ples, he said. Ho, ho, ho, ho! Scat my
----! Princ'ples!" and John heard him chuckling to himself all the way
out of the office.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Considering John's relations with David Harum, it was natural that he
should wish to think as well of him as possible, and he had not (or
thought he had not) allowed his mind to be influenced by the disparaging
remarks and insinuations which had been made to him, or in his presence,
concerning his employer. He had made up his mind to f