d in the fight that ensues you are not always
beaten. I am. Your nerve is sound. Mine has been broken many a time,
tied together again, and is therefore weak. Leaving age out of the
question, there is scarcely any comparison between our equipments for
the fight. You have a habit of silence that enforces respect for your
talk. I am talkative, and a talkative man utters many an unheeded truth.
At times you are almost grim, and this makes your good humor the
brighter. I am always pleasant, and as a consequence fail to hold the
interest of the company. In overalls you can assert a sort of dignity,
or rather what the thoughtless would take for dignity, but which I know
to be a gruffism--permit the expression--a gruffism toned down. But
I--even in a dress-suit I could not keep my dignity from cutting a
prejudicial caper. The trouble is that my acquaintances will not take me
seriously. I once heard a man say, 'Yes, as light as one of Dolihide's
worries.' It angers me to feel that outwardly I am a caricature of my
inner self. Not even my wife knows how serious I am, or what a tragedy
life is to me. But, my dear fellow, my oddities are crystal, and I will
not thread them off in spun glass. I came over for a different purpose.
The money with which you so generously deceived me--I have raised it; it
was a fearful scuffle, but I seized the obstacles that danced about me
and threw them down, one by one. Here is the money."

He took out a number of bank notes with a scattering of silver, and
slowly spread them on the table, carefully placing one upon the other.
"I said that I would pay you, and here's the money,--down to the forty
cents."

"I am much abliged to you, Professor. No hurry, though, you understand."

"There has been no hurry, my dear friend. No one can ever know what a
struggle it was to--to raise it at this time, this needful time." He
leaned back, and with lips tightly sealed together, and with head slowly
nodding, gazed at the pile of dirty paper. "This needful time, thou
filth," he said.

"Now, if you need it," Milford spoke up quickly, "take it. I'm not
pressed. You can pay it some other time."

"My life insurance will be due again within three days."

"Then go ahead and pay it."

The Professor continued to gaze at the bank notes. "Must I again crease
you into uncleanly folds--I am a thousand times your debtor, my dear
boy. I could spin fine, but I won't. I could pronounce a curse upon
these pieces of motley