“'Well, Mary,' says the old man, 'I kind o' like to have it around me all the time--uh--huh! a little bit where I can put my hands on it, all the time. I used to carry gold; but I gave that up; it's too heavy, for what it's worth. But I like it, Mary; I used to look at that gold and say to myself, “Well, there's one thing you got, Lem Singleton, they never thought you'd get when you left home! And they aren't going to take it away from you, either!” It was a long time before I could make paper seem as real to me as gold. But it does now.' “And what does the old bird do but take it out of his pocket again and crinkle it through his fingers and smooth it out again and pet it and do everything but kiss it. Larry and I stood looking at him with our eyes sticking out, and he looked at us and laughed. It came to me all of a sudden that he liked to come where we servants were because he could pull that kind of thing in front of us, but that he was sort of lost among the swell-society bunch because he didn't dare pull it there and didn't feel so rich among them. “'My God, Larry,' I said, when we were outside the house, 'did you notice how much kale the old man had there?' “'Uh-huh,' said Larry. 'Mother always cooks a lot for him.' “'Wake up, Stupid,' I said. 'I don't mean cabbage. I mean money. There must have been nearly two hundred thousand dollars in that roll!' “'He always has around one hundred thousand dollars on him, at least,' says Larry. 'And I've seen him flash as high as a quarter of a million.' “'Well,' I says, 'something ought to be done about it.' “'What do you mean, Ed?' says he. “'Oh, nothing,' I said. “We walked over to get the L train downtown, saying nothing, and then finally Larry remarked: “'Electricity is a great thing, Ed.' “'I never said it wasn't,' says I. “'It's a great thing,' says Larry, 'but when you sit on it, sit on it right. For instance, I'd a darned sight rather sit in one of these electric trains than in that electric chair up at Sing Sing.' “'Who said anything about an electric chair?' I asked him. “'Nobody said anything,' says Larry, 'but you're thinking so darned loud I can get you.' “'Piffle, peanuts and petrification,' I said. 'Take care of your own thoughts, and I'll skim the fat off of mine myself.' “Well, as I said, after that we got better acquainted, the old man and I. I paid more attention to him. He interested me more. I've always been interested in science of all kinds, and the year I spent in Jake Hergsheimer's house I cut the leaves of a lot of books in his library and gave them the once over. I was always interested in psychology, even before the word got to be a headliner in the Sunday supplements, and I took a good deal of pleasure that winter trying to get inside of Old Man Singleton's mind. I must say, I never got very far in, at that. My general conclusion at the end is what it was at the beginning--his fad is kale.