Scattergood looked at her admiringly.

“I know him,” she said.

“Like him?”

“He’s a nice boy.”  Scattergood liked the way she said “nice.”  It conveyed a fine shade of meaning, and he thought more of Ovid in consequence.  “But he’s awful young—­and green.”

“Calc’late he is—­calc’late he is.”

“He needs somebody to look after him,” she said, sharply.

“Thinkin’ of undertakin’ the work?...  Favor undertakin’ it?”

She looked at him a moment speculatively.  “I might do worse.  He’d be decent and kind—­and I’ve got brains.  I could make something of him....”

“Um!...  Ovid’s up and made somethin’ of himself.”

“What?” She spoke quickly, sharply.

“A thief.”

Scattergood glanced sidewise to study the effect of this curt announcement, but her face was expressionless, rather too expressionless.

“That’s why you’re looking for him?”

“Yes.”

“To put him in jail?”

“What would you calc’late on doin’ if you was me?”

“Before I did anything,” she said, slowly, “I’d make up my mind if he was a thief, or if he just happened to take whatever it was he has taken....  I’d be sure he was bad.  If I made up my mind he’d just been green and a fool—­well, I’d see to it he never was that kind of a fool again....  But not by jailing him.”

“Um!...  Three thousand’s a lot of money.”

“Mr. Baines, I see men and other kinds of men from behind my cigar counter—­and the kind of a man Ovid Nixon could be is worth more than that.”

“Mebby so....  Mebby so.  But if I was investin’ in Ovid, I’d want some sort of a guarantee with him.  Would you be willin’ to furnish the guarantee?  And see it was kept good?”

“If you mean what I think you do—­yes,” she said, steadily.  “I’d marry Ovid to-morrow.”

“Him bein’ a thief?”

“Girls that sell cigars aren’t so select,” she said, a trifle bitterly.

“Pansy,” said Scattergood, and he patted her back with a heavy hand that was, nevertheless, gentle, “if ’twan’t for Mandy, that I’ve up and married already, I calc’late I’d try to cut Ovid out....  But then I’ve kinder observed that every woman you meet up with, if she’s bein’ crowded by somethin’ hard and mean, strikes you as bein’ better ’n any other woman you ever see.  I call to mind a number....  Ovid some attached to you, is he?”

“He’s never made love to me, if that’s what you mean.”

“Think you could land him—­for his good and yourn?”

“I—­why, I think I could,” she said.

“Is it a bargain?”

“What?”

“For, and in consideration of one dollar to you in hand paid, and the further consideration of you undertakin’ to keep an eye on him till death do you part, I agree to keep him out of jail—­and without nobody knowin’ he was ever anythin’ but honest—­and a dum fool.”