Ted gave an impatient shrug. "As you will. However you come by it, you admit having a hundred pounds." "A hundred and ten I should say," interrupted Ned, who was counting a handful of loose gold and silver. "I've a hundred in notes besides. However! That needn't be a difficulty!" The level, golden sun-rays flashed on a curved gold flight, as a bright new sovereign flitted duck-and-drake fashion over the brimming pool at their feet, then disappeared, leaving a circled series of ripples like a smoke wreath on its shiny surface. "Hold hard! I say--you know--here! stop that, will you--don't be such a blamed fool!" ... There was imminent danger of a struggle in reality when a voice from the road behind them said with a mixture of appeal and authority: "Do not quarrel, see you, my good fellows, but tell me the cause of your disagreement, and I will advise to the best of my ability." The speaker, also a young man of some thirty years, was tall and dark with a jaw which should have been strong from its length, but was curiously marred by the almost feminine softness of contour which belied the blue shadow of a hard-shaven beard. For the rest he had a fine pair of fiery dark eyes, set close to the thick eyebrows which almost met on his high, narrow forehead. It was the face of a saint or a sinner, preferably the former; but whichever way, the face of an enthusiast. "You're a parson," said Ned, ceasing from horseplay and eyeing the rusty black suit. "So we will refer to you, sir, since you are bound by your cloth to agree with _me_, and say that money is the root of all evil." Apprised of the cause of dispute, the Reverend Morris Pugh, of the Calvinistic Methodist Church in the valley below, sat and looked doubtfully first at the loose gold and silver, then at Ned Cruttenden's critical blue eyes. Both appealed to him strongly; the poetry of his race leapt up to meet the one, the inordinate valuation of even a penny, also typical of his race, reached out to the other. "Don't say it might be sold and given to the poor," said Ned with a sudden smile--"To begin with, the remark has been appropriated by Judas, and then, it's such a rank begging of the question! Poor or rich, the point at issue between us--my friend over there being a bit of a socialist is, of course, a bit of a mammon worshipper also--is whether gold is--is a sovereign remedy! I say not. It doesn't touch the personal equation, which is all we have--if we have that! So I contend that neither I, nor the world at large, would suffer if I made ducks and drakes like this ..." Another curving flight of gold ended in a swift _whit-whitter_ of lessening leaps and a final disappearance; but this time the detaining hand was Morris Pugh's. His eager face held no doubt as to his desire, though his mind evidently hesitated over a reason for it. "You really, sir, ought not," he began; then paused. "Why?" asked Ned quietly.