him, partly the gambling
spirit which seizes men when nothing is left but one great spectacular
success or else be blotted out. That's the case with your philosopher;
and I'm not sure that I won't lose twenty thousand dollars by him yet."

"You've lost more with less justification," retorted the Judge, who, in
his ninetieth year, was still as alive as his friend at sixty.

M. Mornay waved a hand in acknowledgment, and rolled his cigar from
corner to corner of his mouth. "Oh, I've lost a lot more in my
time, Judge, but with a squint in my eye! But I'm doing this with no
astigmatism. I've got the focus."

The aged Judge gave a conciliatory murmur-he had a fine persuasive
voice. "You would never be sorry for what you have done if you had known
his daughter--his Zoe. It's the thought of her that keeps him going. He
wants the place to be just as she left it when she comes back."

"Well, well, let's hope it will. I'm giving him a chance," replied M.
Mornay with his wineglass raised. "He's got eight thousand dollars in
cash to build his mill again; and I hope he'll keep a tight hand on it
till the mill is up."

Keep a tight hand on it?

That is what Jean Jacques meant to do; but if a man wants to keep a
tight hand on money he should not carry it about in his pocket in cold,
hard cash. It was a foolish whim of Jean Jacques that he must have the
eight thousand dollars in cash--in hundred-dollar bills--and not in the
form of a cheque; but there was something childlike in him. When, as he
thought, he had saved himself from complete ruin, he wanted to keep and
gloat over the trophy of victory, and his trophy was the eight thousand
dollars got from the Barbille farm. He would have to pay out two
thousand dollars in cash to the contractors for the rebuilding of the
mill at once,--they were more than usually cautious--but he would have
six thousand left, which he would put in the bank after he had let
people see that he was well fortified with cash.

The child in him liked the idea of pulling out of his pocket a few
thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. He had always carried a good
deal of money loose in his pocket, and now that his resources were so
limited he would still make a gallant show. After a week or two he would
deposit six thousand dollars in the bank; but he was so eager to begin
building the mill, that he paid over the stipulated two thousand dollars
to the contractors on the very day he received the eight tho