it went home. The color crept slowly from the
Elder's sanguine face.

"I have no intention of offering you charity."

"You know damn well you dasn't. I'm not speaking of charity, and you
know that, too, Jim. I'm speaking of blood money, and I mean just what I
say."

"You are still the same doubting Thomas, I see. Do you recall how you
were always the last one--er--to be won over to a new enterprise?" The
Elder tried to smile.

"I had good reason to go slow. A mite of caution is a purty fair
endowment of nature where some people's schemes is concerned. If I'd
used a little of it last spring I'd not be in the fix I am to-day."

"But that bump of caution on your head is pretty hard on your friends."

"I cal'late it won't hurt my friends none. We wa'n't speaking of them
just then. Anyhow, it's kept me with a clean conscience to sleep with,
and I'd a heap sight rather ship with clear rigging than be ballasted
with some people's money and have to make bedfellows with their
conscience."

"Yes,--er--ahem--quite true," was the hasty reply. "What can I do for
you, Josiah? If I can be of the least service,--er--I shall be only too
glad."

"It depends on what you've got to offer me. The fust thing I'd like to
suggest is that you stop that there er-ing and hem-ing. There ain't no
one here but me, and it don't make no impression. Being that you're so
infernal anxious to get back to boyhood days we might just as well go
all-hog on it. You didn't try none of that foolishness then."

"What you say is quite true." The Elder stroked his chops thoughtfully.

"You didn't have them things to pet, neither. You might just as well
stop that. It makes me nervous."

Elder Fox eyed him narrowly. He had a mind to tell this man to leave his
house at once. He even entertained the thought that it might be a good
thing to call Debbs and have him put out. But a certain fear, which had
for years haunted the Elder, laid a cold restraining hand on his
inclinations.

"Yes, Josiah, those are habits that I have formed in business. Dealing
with so many different kinds of men makes us do odd things at times, and
if repeated often enough they become habits. I have always tried to be
courteous even to men that bore me, and I presume I took on those
senseless little syllables to temper my natural brusqueness."

"Well, you don't need 'em to-night, and you can be as brusque as you
like."

"Before we speak of that little matter between us, I have so