“Purty apt,” said the clerk. “Fincher's his best friend sence his bu'st-up, an' they are mighty thick. I reckon he gits the cold-shoulder at a lots o' places.” “You don't say!” “An' of course he wants somewhar to go besides home. In passing I've seed 'im a-figurin' several times at Fincher's desk. They say he's got some notion o' workin' fer Fincher as his bookkeeper.” “Well, he 'll have to make a livin' some way,” said Pole. The clerk laughed significantly. “Ef it ain't already made,” said he, with a smile. Pole stood up. “I don't think that's right,” he said, coldly. “Me nur you, nur nobody, hain't got no right to hint at what we don't know nothin' about. Mr. Craig may 'a' lost ever' cent he had.” “In a pig's valise!” sneered the red-headed man. “I'd bet my hat he's got money--an' plenty of it, huh!” “Well, I don't know nothin' about it,” said Pole, still coldly. “An' what's more, Dunn, I ain't a-goin' about smirchin' any helpless man's character, nuther. Ef I knowed he had made by the bu'st I'd talk different, but I don't know it!” “Oh, I see which side you are on, Baker,” laughed the clerk. “Folks are about equally divided. Half is fer 'im an' half agin. But mark my words, Craig will slide out o' this town some day, an' be heerd of after a while a-gittin' started agin some'r's else. That racket has been worked to death all over the country.” Pole carried the discussion no further. Half an hour passed. Customers were coming in from the wagon-yard and examining the wares on the counters and making slow purchases. The proprietor came in and let the clerk go to breakfast. Pole stood in the doorway, looking up the street in the direction of Craig's residence. Presently he saw the ex-banker coming from the post-office, reading his mail. Pole stepped back into the store and let him go by; then he went to the door again and saw Craig go into Fincher's warehouse at the end of the next block of straggling, wooden buildings. Pole sauntered down the sidewalk in that direction, passing the front door of the warehouse without looking in. The door at the side of the house had a long platform before it, and on it Fincher, the proprietor, was weighing bales of hay which were being unloaded from several wagons by the countrymen who were disposing of it. “Hello, Mr. Fincher,” Pole greeted him, familiarly. “Want any help unloadin'?” “Hello, Baker,” said Fincher, looking up from the blank-book in which he was recording the weights. “No, I reckon they can handle it all right.” Fincher was a short, fat man, very bald, and with a round, laughing face. He had known Pole a long time and considered him a most amusing character. “How do you come on, Pole?” “Oh, about as common. I jest thought them fellers looked sorter light-weight.” The men on the wagon laughed as they thumped a bale of hay on to the platform. “You'd better dry up,” one of them said. “We 'll git the mayor to put you to work agin.”