r it. I am a borrower sometimes, and I
believe in keeping interest at home in our own community. Will you
discount my note at legal interest?"

"Never," replied Meshach.

"Then," said the Judge, smiling, "you'll put me to some inconvenience."

"That's more than legal interest," answered Milburn, sturdily. "You'll
pay the legal interest where you go, and the inconvenience of going will
cost something too. If you add your expenses as liberally as you incur
them when you go to Baltimore, to legal interest, you are always paying
a good shave."

"Where you have risks," suggested the Judge, "there is some reason for a
heavy discount, but my property will enrich this county and all the land
you hold mortgages on."

"Bog ore!" muttered the money-lender. "I never lent money on that kind
of risk. I must read upon it! They say manufacturing requires mechanical
talent. How much do you want?"

"Three thousand."

"Secured upon the furnace?"

"Yes."

Meshach computed on a piece of paper, and the Judge, with easy
curiosity, studied his singular face and figure.

He was rather short and chunky, not weighing more than one hundred and
thirty pounds, with long, fine fingers of such tracery and separate
action that every finger seemed to have a mind and function of its own.
Looking at his hands only, one would have said: "There is here a
pianist, a penman, a woman of definite skill, or a man of peculiar
delicacy." All the fingers were well produced, as if the hand instead of
the face was meant to be the mind's exponent and reveal its portrait
there.

Yet the face of Meshach Milburn, if more repellent, was uncommon.

The effects of one long diet and one climate, invariable, from
generation to generation, and both low and uninvigorating, had brought
to nearly aboriginal form and lines his cheek-bones, hair, and resinous
brown eyes. From the cheek-bones up he looked like an Indian, and
expressed a stolid power and swarthiness. Below, there dropped a large
face, in proportion, with nothing noticeable about it except the nose,
which was so straight, prominent, and complete, and its nostrils so
sensitive, that only the nose upon his face seemed to be good company
for his hands. When he confronted one, with his head thrown back a
little, his brown eyes staring inquiry, and his nose almost sentient,
the effect was that of a hostile savage just burst from the woods.

That was his condition indeed.

"Look at him in the eyes," said