long time for my money, you know."

"Yes, and others will now have to wait a great deal longer, in
consequence of your hasty action," replied Layton, speaking seriously,
but not in a way to offend.

"I am very sorry, but it can't be helped now," said Grasper, looking a
little confused. "I only took the ordinary method of securing my own.
If I had not taken care of myself, somebody would have come in and
swept the whole. You know you couldn't possibly have stood it much
longer."

"If you think it right, Mr. Grasper, I have nothing now to say,"
returned Layton.

"You certainly could not call it wrong for a man to sue another who has
the means, and yet refuses to pay what he owes him?"

"I think it wrong, Mr. Grasper," replied Layton, "for any man to injure
others in his over-eagerness to get his own, and this you did. You
seized four, times as many goods as would have paid your claim if they
had been fairly sold, and had them sacrificed for one-fourth of their
value, thus wronging my other creditors out of some three thousand
dollars in the present, and taxing my future efforts to make good what
was no better than thrown into the sea. You had no moral right to do
this, although you had the power. This is my opinion of the matter, Mr.
Grasper; and I freely express it, in the hope that, if ever another man
is so unfortunate as to get in your debt without the means of present
payment, that you will be less exacting with him than you were with me."

Grasper writhed in spirit under this cutting rebuke of Layton, which
was given seriously, but not in anger. He tried to make a great many
excuses, to none of which Layton made any reply. He had said all he
wished to say on the subject. After this, the two met frequently--more
frequently than Grasper cared about meeting the man he had injured.
Several times he alluded, indirectly, to the past, in an apologetic
way, but Layton never appeared to understand the allusion. This was
worse to Grasper than if he had come out and said over and over again
just what he thought of the other's conduct.

Five years from the day Layton commenced business anew, he made his
last dividend upon the deficit that stood against him at the time his
creditors generously released him and set him once more upon his feet.
He was doing a very good business, and had a credit much more extensive
than he cared about using. No one was more ready to sell him than
Grasper, who frequently importuned him to