he'll buy some
stock--he'll back me."

The Captain's nervous voice had lifted and he was talking so that the
clerk and Mr. Brotherton both in the back part of the store might hear.
The cement of the Judge's countenance cracked in a smile, but the gray
mantle of fear still fluttered across his eyes.

"All right, Captain," he answered, "some other time--not now--I'm in a
hurry," and went strutting out into the storm.

Mr. Brotherton with his moon face shining into the ledger laughed a
great clacking laugh and got up from his stool to come to the cigar
case, saying, "Well, say--Cap--if you'd a' went on with what you started
out to say, I'd a' give fi' dollars--say, I'd a' made it ten
dollars--say!" And he laughed again a laugh that seemed to set all the
celluloid in the plush covered, satin lined toilet cases on the new
counter a-flutter. He walked down the store with elephantine tread, as
he laughed, and then the door opened and Dr. Nesbit came in. Five months
had put a perceptible bow into his shoulders, and an occasional cast of
uncertainty into his twinkling eyes.

Mr. Brotherton called half down the store, "Say, Doc--you should have
been here a minute ago, and seen the Captain bristle up to Tom Van Dorn
about his love affair and then get cold feet and try to sell him some
Household Horse stock." The Captain grinned sheepishly, the Doctor
patted the Captain affectionately on the shoulder and chirped.

"So you went after him, did you, Ezry?" The loose skin of his face
twitched, "Poor Tom--packing up his career in a petticoat and going
forth to fuss with God--no sense--no sense," piped the Doctor, glancing
over the headlines in his _Star_. The Captain, still clinging to
the subject that had been too much for him, remarked: "Doc--don't you
think some one ought to tell him?" The Doctor put down his paper,
stroked his pompadour and looking over his glasses, answered:

"Ezry--if some one hasn't told him--no one ever can. I tried to tell him
once myself. I talked pretty middlin' plain, Ezry." He was speaking
softly, then he piped out, "But what a man's heart doesn't tell him, his
friends can't. Still, Ezry, a strong friend is often a good tonic for a
weak heart." The Doctor looked at the Captain, then concluded: "That was
a brave, kind act you tried to do--and I warrant you got it to him--some
way. He's a keen one--Ezry--a mighty keen one; and he understood."

Mr. Brotherton went back to his ledger; the Doctor plunged