“How are you off for funds at this present time?”

“Low, very low.  The old fellow don’t pay me half a salary.  I’m in debt three or four hundred dollars, and dunned almost to death whenever I am in the way of duns.  All the people I owe know better than to send their bills to the store, for if they were to do so, and by thus exposing me cause me to lose my situation, they are well aware that they might have to whistle for their money.”

“Can’t you make a raise some how?  We must both have money to carry out this matter.  In the first place, we must go off a hundred or two miles and spend a week.  After we return we may have to board for weeks at pretty high charges before a reconciliation can be brought about.  During this time you will be out of a situation, for old Larkin won’t take you back into the store until the matter is made up.  You ought at least to have a couple of hundred dollars.”

“And I have n’t twenty.”

“Bad, very bad.  But don’t you think you could borrow a couple of hundred from Larkin, and pay him back after you become his son-in-law?”

“Borrow from Larkin!  Goodness!  He’d clear me out in less than no time, if I were to ask him to loan me even fifty dollars.”

“No, but you don’t understand me,” remarked Sanford after a thoughtful pause.  “Can ’t you borrow it without his knowledge, I mean?  No harm meant of course.  You intend borrowing his daughter, you know, for a little while, until he consents to give her to you.”

Hatfield looked into the face of his tempter with a bewildered air for some moments.  He did not yet fully comprehend his drift.

“How am I to borrow without his knowing it?  Figure me that out if you please,” he said.

“Who keeps the cash?”

“I do.”

“Ah! so far so good.  You keep the cash.  Very well.  Now is n’t it within the bounds of possibility for you to possess yourself of a couple of hundred dollars in such a way that the deficit need not appear?  If you can, it will be the easiest thing in the world, after you come back, and get the handling of a little more money in your right than has heretofore been the case, to return the little loan.”

“But suppose it possible for me thus to get possession of two hundred dollars, and suppose I do not get back safely after our adventure, and do not have the handling of more money in my own right—­what then?”

“You’ll only be supporting his daughter out of his own money—­that is all.”

“Humph!  Quite a casuist.”

“But is n’t there reason in it?”

“I do n’t know.  I am not exactly in a state to see reasons clearly just now.”

“You can see the necessity of having a couple of hundred dollars, I suppose?”

“Oh yes—­as clear as mud.”

“You must have that sum at least, or to proceed will be the height of folly.”

“I can see that too.”

“It is owing to Larkin’s mean pride that you are driven to this extremity.  He ought to pay for it.”