Marvin Towne had formed the habit of stopping to chat with Scattergood daily, totally unconscious that to all intents and purposes he had been ordered by Scattergood to make daily reports to him.  He seemed depressed as he leaned against a post of the piazza.

“Lookin’ peaked, Marvin.  Hain’t all goin’ well?  Gittin’ uneasy?”

“It’s this dum hoss race,” said Marvin.  “Everybody’s het up over it so’s nobody’ll talk politics.  How’s a feller goin’ to win votes if he can’t git nobody to talk to him, that’s what I want to know?  Seems like there hain’t nothin’ in the world but Wade Lumley’s geldin’ and that hoss of Green’s.”

“Um!...  Sort of distressing hain’t it?  Know Kent Pilkinton perty well, Marvin?”

“Brother-in-law.”

“Holds public office, don’t he?”

“Chairman of the Board of Selectmen’s what he is.”

“Good man fur’t,” said Scattergood, waggling his head.  “Calculate to be on good terms with him, Marvin?  Perty good terms?”

“Good enough so’s he kin ask me to loan him two thousand dollars he’s needin’ a’mighty bad.”

“Give it to him, Marvin?”

“Huh!” said Marvin, eloquently.

“If I was to indorse his note, think you could see your way clear?”

“Certain sure.”

“See him ag’in, won’t you?  Perty soon?”

“Yes.”

“What d’you calc’late to tell him?”

“What you said?”

“Didn’t say nothin’, did I?  Jest asked a question.  It was you said something Marvin, wa’n’t it?  Said you’d lend on my indorsement.”

“That what you want me to tell him?”

“Didn’t say so, did I?  Jest asked a question.  G’-by, Marvin.  Lemme know what he says.”

It was unnecessary for Marvin to report, for early next morning Kent Pilkinton, owner of a hill farm on the out-skirts of a village—­a farm on which he succeeded in raising the most ample crop of whiskers in Coldriver, and little else, came diffidently up to Scattergood as he sat in front of his hardware store.

“Morning Kent,” said Scattergood.  “Come to look at mowin’ machines, I calc’late.”

“Might look at one,” said Kent.

“Need one, don’t you?”

“Bad.”

“Need quite a mess of implements, don’t you?”

“Could do with ’em if I had ’em....  ’Tain’t what I come fur, though, Scattergood.  Been tryin’ to borrow money off of my brother-in-law, but he don’t calclate to lend without I git an indorser, and seems like he sets store by your name on a note.”

“Does, eh?  Any reason I should indorse for you?  Know any reason?”

“Nary,” said Kent, and started to move off.

“Hold your bosses.  What you need the money for?”

“Pay off a thousand-dollar mortgage and another thousand to git the farm in shape to run.”

“Calculate you kin run it, then?”

“If I git the tools.”