been as high as its price, it
would have been over my head. I sold out, and then I said to myself:
'Now, Lanigan, my boy, if you don't want to be a beastly pauper for the
rest of your life, you had better go home.' Honestly, I was frightened,
and it seemed to me I should never be safe until I was back in Lethbury.
Look here," he said, taking from a pocket a wallet filled with a mass of
papers and a bank-book; "look at those certificates, and here is my New
York bank-book, so you can see that I am not telling you lies.

"Now you may say that the fact of my having money doesn't prove that I
am any better than I used to be, but if you think that, you are wrong.
There is no better way to reform a fellow than to give him something to
take care of and take an interest in. That's my case now, and all I've
got I've given myself, which makes it better, of course. I'm not rich,
but I've got enough to buy out any business in Lethbury. And to go into
business and to live here are what will suit me better than anything
else, and that's not counting in Ida Mayberry at all. To live here with
her would be better luck than the biggest rise in oats the world ever
saw. Now you see where I stand. If Mrs. Cristie goes against me, she
does a cruel thing to me, and to Ida Mayberry besides."

"Why don't you tell her the facts?" said Lodloe. "That would be the
straightforward and sensible thing to do."

"My dear boy," said Lanigan, "I cannot put the facts into the hands of a
woman. No matter how noble or honorable she may be, without the least
intention on her part they would leak out, and if Calthea Rose should
get hold of them I should be lost. She'd drop old Tippengray like a hot
potato and stick to me like one of those adhesive plasters that have
holes in them. No, sir; I don't want Calthea Rose to think well of me. I
want her to keep on considering me as a good-for-nothing scapegrace,
and, by George! it's easy enough to make her do that. It's all in her
line of business. But I want other people to think well of me in a
general way, and when Calthea and Tippengray have settled things between
them, and are traveling on the Continent, which they certainly ought to
do, I'll start in business, and take my place as one of the leading
citizens of Lethbury; and, as things look now, all will be plain sailing
if Mrs. Cristie thinks well enough of me not to interfere between me
and Ida Mayberry. Now all I ask of you is to say a good word for me if