But when he reached the hotel, a strange trepidation overcame him.  The dining-room was at its slack water, between the ebb of breakfast and before the flow of the preparation for the midday meal.  He could not have his interview with Kitty in that dreary waste of reversed chairs and bare trestlelike tables, and she was possibly engaged in her household duties.  But Miss Kitty had already seen him cross the road, and had lounged into the dining-room with an artfully simulated air of casually examining it.  At the unexpected vision of his hopes, arrayed in the sweetest and freshest of rosebud-sprigged print, his heart faltered.  Then, partly with the desperation of a timid man, and partly through the working of a half-formed resolution, he met her bright smile with a simple inquiry for her father.  Miss Kitty bit her pretty lip, smiled slightly, and preceded him with great formality to the office.  Opening the door, without raising her lashes to either her father or the visitor, she said, with a mischievous accenting of the professional manner, “Mr. Barker to see you on business,” and tripped sweetly away.

And this slight incident precipitated the crisis.  For Barker instantly made up his mind that he must purchase the next claim for his partners of this man Carter, and that he would be obliged to confide to him the details of his good fortune, and as a proof of his sincerity and his ability to pay for it, he did so bluntly.  Carter was a shrewd business man, and the well-known simplicity of Barker was a proof of his truthfulness, to say nothing of the shares that were shown to him.  His selling price for his claim had been two hundred dollars, but here was a rich customer who, from a mere foolish sentiment, would be no doubt willing to pay more.  He hesitated with a bland but superior smile.  “Ah, that was my price at my last offer, Mr. Barker,” he said suavely; “but, you see, things are going up since then.”

The keenest duplicity is apt to fail before absolute simplicity.  Barker, thoroughly believing him, and already a little frightened at his own presumption—­not for the amount of the money involved, but from the possibility of his partners refusing his gift utterly—­quickly took advantage of this Locus PENITENTIAE.  “No matter, then,” he said hurriedly; “perhaps I had better consult my partners first; in fact,” he added, with a gratuitous truthfulness all his own, “I hardly know whether they will take it of me, so I think I’ll wait.”

Carter was staggered; this would clearly not do!  He recovered himself with an insinuating smile.  “You pulled me up too short, Mr. Barker; I’m a business man, but hang it all! what’s that among friends?  If you reckoned I gave my word at two hundred—­why, I’m there!  Say no more about it—­the claim’s yours.  I’ll make you out a bill of sale at once.”

“But,” hesitated Barker, “you see I haven’t got the money yet, and—­”