“Then do as I tell ye to do,” said the old man on the bed.  “It may be a come-down for a man that’s had men under him all his life, but it amounts to more’n five hundred a year, sure and stiddy.  It’s something to do, and you couldn’t stand it to loaf—­you that’s always been so active.  It ain’t reskin’ anything, and with all the passin’ and the meetin’ folks, and the gossipin’ and the chattin’, and all that, all your time is took up.  It’s honer’ble, it’s stiddy.  Leave your money where it is, take my place, and keep this job in the family.”

The two men were talking in a little cottage at the end of a long covered bridge.  A painted board above the door heralded the fact that the cottage was the toll-house, and gave the rates of toll.

“It’s Providence that has sent you here jest as I was bein’ took out of the world,” went on Uncle Jerry.  “You’re my only rel’tive.  I’m leavin’ you the three thousand I’ve accumulated.  I want to leave you the job, too.  I—­”

A hoarse hail outside interrupted.  The Cap’n, scowling, shuffled out and came in, jingling some pennies in his brown hand.

“I feel like a hand-organ monkey every time I go out there,” he muttered.

“I tell ye,” protested the old man, as earnestly as his feebleness would permit, “there’s lots of big business in this world that don’t need so long a head as this one does—­bein’ as how you’re goin’ to run it shipshape.  You need brains; that you do, nephy.  It’ll keep you studyin’ all the time.  When you git interested in it you ain’t never goin’ to have time to be lonesome.  There’s the plain hello folks to be treated one way, the good-day folks, the pass-the-time-o’-day folks, the folks that need the tip o’ the hat—­jest for politeness, and not because you’re beneath ’em,” he hastened to add, noting the skipper’s scowl; “the folks that swing up to the platform, the folks that you’ve got to chase a little, even if it is muddy; the folks that pay in advance and want you to remember it and save ’em trouble, the folks that pay when they come back, and the folks that never pay at all—­and I tell ye, nephy, there’s where your work is cut out for ye!  I’ve only had one arm, but there’s mighty few that have ever done me out of toll, and I’m goin’ to give ye a tip on the old bell-wether of ’em all.  I’m goin’ to advise ye to stand to one side and let him pass.  He’s—­”

“And me a man that’s licked every—­”

“Hold on!  He’s diff’runt from all you’ve ever tackled.”

In his excitement the old toll-gatherer attempted to struggle upon his elbow.  He choked.  The nurse came and laid him back with gentle remonstrance.  Before he had regained his voice to talk more the minister came, obeying a summons of grave import.  Then came One who sealed One-arm Jerry’s lips and quieted the fingers that had been picking at the faded coverlet as though they were gathering pennies.