“I do.”

“On what collateral?”

“My word.”

Breen leaned back in his chair.  The unsophisticated innocence of this boy from the country would be amusing if it were not so stupid.

“What are you earning, Jack?” he said at last, with a half-derisive, half-humorous expression on his face.

“A thousand dollars a year.”  Jack had never taken his eyes from his uncle’s face, nor had he moved a muscle of his body.

“And it would take you ten years to pay it if you dumped it all in?”

“Yes.”

“Got anything else to offer?” This came in a less supercilious tone.  The calm, direct manner of the young man had begun to have its effect.

“Nothing but my ore property.”

“That’s good for nothing.  I made a mistake when I wanted you to put it in here.  Glad you didn’t take me up.”

“So am I. My own investigation showed the same thing.”

“And the ore’s of poor quality,” continued Breen in a decided tone.

“Very poor quality, what I saw of it,” rejoined Jack.

“Well, we will check that off.  MacFarlane got any thing he could turn in?”

“No—­and I wouldn’t ask him.”

“And you mean to tell me, Jack, that you are going broke yourself to help a dead man pay his debts?”

“If you choose to put it that way,”

“Put it that way?  Why, what other way is there to put it?  You’ll excuse me, Jack—­but you always were a fool when your damned idiotic notions of what is right and wrong got into your head—­and you’ll never get over it.  You might have had an interest in my business by this time, and be able to write your check in four figures; and yet here you are cooped up in a Jersey village, living at a roadside tavern, and getting a thousand dollars a year.  That’s what your father did before you; went round paying everybody’s debts; never could teach him anything; died poor, just as I told him he would.”

Jack had to hold on to his chair to keep his mouth closed.  His father’s memory was dangerous ground for any man to tread on—­even his father’s brother; but the stake for which he was playing was too great to be risked by his own anger.

“No, Jack,” Breen continued, gathering up a mass of letters and jamming them into a pigeon-hole in front of him, as if the whole matter was set forth in their pages and he was through with it forever.  “No—­I guess I’ll pass on that ten thousand-dollar loan.  I am sorry, but A. B. & Co, haven’t any shekels for that kind of tommy-rot.  As to your helping Minott, what I’ve got to say to you is just this:  let the other fellow walk—­the fellow Garry owes money to—­but don’t you butt in.  They’ll only laugh at you.  Now you will have to excuse me—­the market’s kiting, and I’ve got to watch it.  Give my love to Ruth.  Your aunt and I will be out on the noon train for the funeral.  Good-by.”