“I’d been expectin’ somethin’ like this, and I was ready for him.

“‘Two hundred and sixty-five dollars,’ says I, prompt.

“He done a little figgerin’.  ‘Well, allowin’ that I have to put up on this heap of desolation for the better part of four days more, that’s cheap, accordin’ to your former rates,’ he says.  ’I’ll go you.  But why not make it two fifty, even?’

“‘Two hundred and sixty-five’s my price,’ says I. So he handed over another ‘Bearer’ check, and his board bill was paid for a week.

“Friday was a fine day, clear as a bell.  Me and Williams had a real picnicky, sociable time.  Livin’ outdoor this way had made him forget his diseases and the doctor, and he showed signs of bein’ ha’fway decent.  We loafed around and talked and dug clams to help out the pork—­that is, I dug ’em and Fatty superintended.  We see no less’n three sailin’ craft go by down the bay and tried our best to signal ’em, but they didn’t pay attention—­thought we was gunners or somethin’, I presume likely.

“At breakfast on Saturday, Williams begun to ask questions again.

“‘Sol,’ says he, ’it surprised me to find that you knew what a “margin” was.  You didn’t get that from anything I said.  Where did you get it?’

“I leaned back on my box seat.

“‘Mr. Williams,’ says I, ’I cal’late I’ll tell you a little story, if you want to hear it.  ’Tain’t much of a yarn, as yarns go, but maybe it’ll interest you.  The start of it goes back to consider’ble many year ago, when I was poorer’n I be now, and a mighty sight younger.  At that time me and another feller, a partner of mine, had a fish weir out in the bay here.  The mackerel struck in and we done well, unusual well.  At the end of the season, not countin’ what we’d spent for livin’ and expenses, we had a balance owin’ us at our fish dealer’s up to Boston of five hundred dollars—­two fifty apiece.  My partner was goin’ to be married in the spring and was cal’latin’ to use his share to buy furniture for the new house with.  So we decided we’d take a trip up to Boston and collect the money, stick it into some savin’s bank where ’twould draw interest until spring and then haul it out and use it.  ’Twas about every cent we had in the world.

“’So to Boston we went, collected our money, got the address of a safe bank and started out to find it.  But on the way my partner’s hat blowed off and the bank address, which was on a slip of paper inside of it, got lost.  So we see a sign on a buildin’, along with a lot of others, that kind of suggested bankin’, and so we stepped into the buildin’ and went upstairs to ask the way again.

“’The place wa’n’t very big, but ’twas fixed up fancy and there was a kind of blackboard along the end of the room where a boy was markin’ up figgers in chalk.  A nice, smilin’ lookin’ man met us and, when we told him what we wanted, he asked us to set down.  Then, afore we knowed it almost, we’d told him the whole story—­about the five hundred and all.  The feller said to hold on a spell and he’d go along with us and show us where the savin’s bank was himself.