spluttered and strangled with it. He had just had the Italian up
and had sacked him on the spot, without wages or character--had
threatened to have him arrested if he was ever caught prowling
about Wrenfield. 'By God, and I'll do it--I'll write to
Washington--I'll have the pauper scoundrel deported! I'll show
him what money can do!' As likely as not there was some
murderous Black-hand business under it--it would be found that
the fellow was a member of a 'gang.' Those Italians would murder
you for a quarter. He meant to have the police look into it. . .
And then he grew frightened at his own excitement. 'But I must
calm myself,' he said. He took his temperature, rang for his
drops, and turned to the Churchman. He had been reading an
article on Nestorianism when the melon was brought in. He asked
me to go on with it, and I read to him for an hour, in the dim
close room, with a fat fly buzzing stealthily about the fallen
melon.

"All the while one phrase of the old man's buzzed in my brain
like the fly about the melon. 'I'LL SHOW HIM WHAT MONEY CAN DO!'
Good heaven! If I could but show the old man! If I could make
him see his power of giving happiness as a new outlet for his
monstrous egotism! I tried to tell him something about my
situation and Kate's--spoke of my ill-health, my unsuccessful
drudgery, my longing to write, to make myself a name--I stammered
out an entreaty for a loan. 'I can guarantee to repay you, sir--
I've a half-written play as security. . .'

"I shall never forget his glassy stare. His face had grown as
smooth as an egg-shell again--his eyes peered over his fat cheeks
like sentinels over a slippery rampart.