"What's the joke?" asked Ted.

"Now, Ted," remonstrated Jo Haley, "that way of talkin' won't
help matters none. As I said, I'm rotten at figures. But you're
the first investment that ever turned out bad, and let me tell you
I've handled some mighty bad smelling ones. Why, kid, if you had
just come to me on the quiet and asked for the loan of a hundred or
so why----"

"What's the joke, Jo?" said Ted again, slowly.

"This ain't my notion of a joke," came the terse answer.
"We're three hundred short."

The last vestige of Ted Terrill's old-time radiance seemed to
flicker and die, leaving him ashen and old.

"Short?" he repeated. Then, "My God!" in a strangely
colorless voice--"My God!" He looked down at his fingers
impersonally, as though they belonged to some one else. Then his
hand clutched Jo Haley's arm with the grip of fear. "Jo! Jo!
That's the thing that has haunted me day and night, till my nerves
are raw. The fear of doing it again. Don't laugh at me, will you?
I used to lie awake nights going over that cursed business of the
bank--over and over--till the cold sweat would break out all over
me. I used to figure it all out again, step by step, until--Jo,
could a man steal and not know it? Could thinking of a thing like
that drive a man crazy? Because if it could--if it
could--then----"