“Mebbe you don’t keer nothin’ about sellin’ of it unless it is in big lumps?” he queried, timidly.  He was thinking of a matter of $250 which his father had saved from pension-money, and was still in the savings-bank.  Carroll replied (but with the greatest indifference) that they often sold stock in very small blocks, and the confidence of them waxed apace.  Amidon thought of a little money which his wife had saved from her boarders, and the barber immediately resolved to invest every cent he had in the United Fuel.  Such was Captain Carroll’s graciousness and urbanity that he idled away an hour in the barber-shop, and the other men melted away, although reluctantly, from an atmosphere of such effulgence.  The milkman’s hollow stomach drove him home for his breakfast.  Little Willy Eddy thought uneasily of his Minna, and took his departure.  The postmaster had a Sunday mail to sort.  And Amidon went out to get a drink of beer; Carroll’s cigar had dried his throat.  Carroll was shaven last, and Flynn did his best by him, even unto a new jar of cold cream, double the quantity of witch-hazel, and a waste of powder.  Then after he had carefully adjusted his hat, and was at last about to go, Flynn stopped him.

“Beg your pardon, sir,” said he, “but—­”

“But what?” said Carroll, rather kindly.

The barber’s lip was actually quivering.  The magnitude and importance of what he was about to propose almost affected his weakly emotional nature to tears.

He finally made out to say, while tears were actually rolling down his cheeks under Carroll’s puzzled regard, that he had $1000 which he had saved, and he would like to invest every penny of it in United Fuel.  And before Carroll knew what he was at, he had actually produced $1000 in a bulky roll of much-befingered notes, from some hiding-place, and was waving them before Carroll’s eyes.

“Here,” said he, “here is the money.  You may as well take it now.  You can get the securities in New York to-morrow, and bring them out on the train.  Here is the money.  Take it.”

Arthur Carroll did not move to take the money.  He stood looking at the excited man with a curious expression.  In fact, his face seemed to reflect the emotion of the barber’s.  His voice was a trifle husky.

“Is that all you have saved?” he asked.

“Every dollar,” replied the barber, continuing to wave and thrust the bills, but he raised an edge of his apron to his eyes, overflowing with the stupendousness of it.  “Every dollar.  I might have saved more, but I’ve been laid up winters considerable with grippe, and folks don’t like to be shaved by a grippy barber.  Dunno’s I blame ‘em.  I’ve had to hire, and hirin’ comes high.  I’ve had considerable to do for a widder with four children, too—­she’s my brother’s widder—­an’, take it all together, I ’ain’t been able to save another dollar.  But that don’t make no odds, as long as I’m going to double it in that stock of yourn.  Take it.”