that Stephen’s promise to pay promptly at the end of the week was a worthless one.  Yates called for his money at the stipulated time; Stephen sweetened him up and put him off a week.  He called then, according to agreement, and came away sugar-coated again, but suffering under another postponement.  So the thing went on.  Yates haunted Stephen week after week, to no purpose, and at last gave it up.  And then straightway Stephen began to haunt Yates!  Wherever Yates appeared, there was the inevitable Stephen.  And not only there, but beaming with affection and gushing with apologies for not being able to pay.  By and by, whenever poor Yates saw him coming, he would turn and fly, and drag his company with him, if he had company; but it was of no use; his debtor would run him down and corner him.  Panting and red-faced, Stephen would come, with outstretched hands and eager eyes, invade the conversation, shake both of Yates’s arms loose in their sockets, and begin—­

’My, what a race I’ve had!  I saw you didn’t see me, and so I clapped on all steam for fear I’d miss you entirely.  And here you are! there, just stand so, and let me look at you! just the same old noble countenance.’ [To Yates’s friend:] ’Just look at him!  Look at him!  Ain’t it just good to look at him!  Ain’t it now?  Ain’t he just a picture!  Some call him a picture; I call him a panorama!  That’s what he is—­an entire panorama.  And now I’m reminded!  How I do wish I could have seen you an hour earlier!  For twenty-four hours I’ve been saving up that two hundred and fifty dollars for you; been looking for you everywhere.  I waited at the Planter’s from six yesterday evening till two o’clock this morning, without rest or food; my wife says, “Where have you been all night?” I said, “This debt lies heavy on my mind.”  She says, “In all my days I never saw a man take a debt to heart the way you do.”  I said, “It’s my nature; how can I change it?” She says, “Well, do go to bed and get some rest.”  I said, “Not till that poor, noble young man has got his money.”  So I set up all night, and this morning out I shot, and the first man I struck told me you had shipped on the “Grand Turk” and gone to New Orleans.  Well, sir, I had to lean up against a building and cry.  So help me goodness, I couldn’t help it.  The man that owned the place come out cleaning up with a rag, and said he didn’t like to have people cry against his building, and then it seemed to me that the whole world had turned against me, and it wasn’t any use to live any more; and coming along an hour ago, suffering no man knows what agony, I met Jim Wilson and paid him the two hundred and fifty dollars on account; and to think that here you are, now, and I haven’t got a cent!  But as sure as I am standing here on this ground on this particular brick,—­there, I’ve scratched a mark on the brick to remember it by,—­I’ll borrow that money and pay it over to you at twelve o’clock sharp, tomorrow!  Now, stand so; let me look at you just once more.’