“But”—­Lucas took the pen from him in mere obedience to his gesture—­ “but—­what for?”

“My instrugtions are to cash it—­no more!”

Lucas stared at the tight-lipped, elderly face, like the face of a wise and distrustful gnome, and held the pen uncertainly above the cheque form.

“How much am I to write?” he asked.

“I haf no instrugtions about de amount,” was the reply.

“But,” cried Lucas, “I might write fifty thousand dollars!”

“My instrugtions are to cash de cheque ven you haf written it.”

“Oh!” said Lucas.

He stared incredulously at the face for some moments and then wrote a cheque for the sum he had named—­fifty thousand dollars.  He was about to add his signature when something occurred to him.

“Is it because I went across the road to that little woman in Tambov?” he asked suddenly.

The whiskered face answered composedly:  “No.  It is because you went out of your rooms and slept on de stairs.”

“Because”—­he seemed puzzled—­“but that is a thing—­why, any gentleman would do it.”

“Dose are my instrugtions,” said the man behind the pigeon-hole.

“I see.”

Lucas stood upright, the uncompleted cheque in his fingers.  All surprise and excitement had vanished from his regard; he seemed taller and stronger than he had been a minute before.  He had yet many calls to make, and, in the nature of things, many rebuffs to receive, before he went home to supper; and the money in his pocket totaled seventy-five cents.  He needed new boots, new clothes, leisure, consideration, and a sight of his native land; in short, he needed fifty thousand dollars.

“You will cash this because I didn’t fail to respect a helpless woman?” he asked, in level tones.

The whiskered cashier replied:  “Yes.  Because you gave up your room and kept watch on de stairs.”

Lucas laughed gently.  “That is not the way to deal with a gentleman,” he said.  “I will make your firm a present of fifty thousand dollars.”

He showed the cheque he had written, with the figures clear and large.  And then, with leisurely motions, he tore it across and again across.

“Much obliged,” said Robert H. Lucas, and made for the door.

XI

THE MAN WHO KNEW

Bearded, bowed, with hard blue eyes that questioned always, so we knew David Uys as children; an old, remotely quiet man, who was to be passed on the other side of the street and in silence.  I have wondered sometimes if the old man ever noticed the hush that, ran before him and the clamor that grew up behind, the games that held breath, while he went by, and the children that judged him with wide eyes.  He alone, of all the people in the little dorp, made his own world and possessed it in solitude; about him, the folk held all interest in community and measured