“Any man who thinks so ought to be kicked,” declared Anderson, with sudden fury, and the other man started.

“I told you I didn’t think so,” he retorted, eying him with some wonder and a little timidity.  “But I declare I didn’t know what to do.  There was that other check not accounted for yet; and I can’t afford to lose any more, and that’s a fact.  Then you think I ought to have cashed it?”

Anderson’s face twitched a little.  Then he said, as if it were wrung out of him, “On general principles, I should not call it good business to repeat a transaction of that kind until the first was made right.”

The druggist looked relieved.  “Well, I am glad to hear you say so.  I hated to—­”

“But Captain Carroll may be as good pay in the end as I am,” interrupted Anderson.  “He seems to me to have good principles about things of that kind.”

“Well, I’ll cash the next check,” said Drew, with a laugh.  “I must go back, for I left my little boy alone in the store.”

The druggist had scarcely gone before the old clerk came to the office door.  “That young lady who was here a little while ago wants to speak to you, Mr. Anderson,” he said, with an odd look.

“I will come out directly,” replied Anderson, and passed out into the store, where Charlotte Carroll stood waiting with a heightened color on her cheeks and a look of mingled appeal and annoyance in her eyes.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, “but can you cash a check for me for twenty-five dollars?  It will be a great favor.”

“Certainly,” replied Anderson, without the slightest hesitation.  He was conscious that both clerks, the man and the boy, were watching him with furtive curiosity, and he was aware that Carroll’s unreliability in the matter of his drafts had become widely known.  He passed around the counter to the money-drawer.

“Money seems to be very scarce in Banbridge this morning,” remarked Charlotte, in a sweet, slightly petulant voice.  She was both angry and ashamed that she had been forced to apply to Anderson to cash the check.  “I have been everywhere, and nobody had as much as twenty-five dollars,” she added.

Anderson heard a very faint chuckle, immediately covered by a cough, from Sam Riggs.  He began counting out the notes, being conscious that the man and the boy were regarding each other with meaning, that the boy’s elbow dug the man’s ribs.  He handed the money to Charlotte with a courteous bow, and she gave him in return the check, which was payable to her mother, and which had been indorsed by her.

“Thank you very much indeed,” she said, but still in a piqued rather than very grateful voice.  She really had no suspicion that any particular gratitude was called for towards any one who cashed one of her father’s checks.

“You are quite welcome,” Anderson replied.