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.

"'A half-written play--a play of _yours_ as security?' He looked at