Webb made no reply. If he had been as sure of his own moral worth as he was of Jim’s he would have been a better man. As it was, he only looked significantly at Thornton, who had evidently come prepared to play a part. “It ain’t no business o’ mine, fellers, one way or the other,” began Thornton, slightly confused. He cleared his throat and spat on the floor. “But I ’ll admit I’m kinder anxious to see Harry get into some settled business. You know he’s mighty changeable, one day runnin’ some fortune-wheel or card-table, an’ the next got charge of a side-show, bar, or skating-rink, and never makes much stake at anything. I told his wife to-day that I’d do my best to get you fellers to come to a understanding. That’s all the interest I’ve got in the matter; but I’d bet my last chip you’d have to look a long ways before you could find another buyer with that much ready cash such times as these.” “Huh, you don’t say!” sneered Jim, a cold gleam of indecision and excitement in the glance that he accidentally threw to Bob Lash, who erroneously fancied that his friend wanted him to say something to offset the remarks made by Webb’s ally. But diplomacy was not one of the few gifts with which frugal nature had blessed Bob, and when the idea struck him that he ought to speak, he grew very agitated, and almost stabbed a hole in one of his cheeks with the long splinter with which he was picking his teeth. “The man that gits it has a purty dead-shore thing fer a comfortable income,” he blurted out, incautiously. “I wish I had the money to secure it; I’d plank it down so quick it ‘u’d make yore head swim.” Jim flushed. “Nobody hain’t said nothin’ ’bout the shebang bein’ on the market,” he said, quickly. Bob saw his mistake too late to rectify it, so he said nothing. Webb smiled, and rose with an easy assumption of indifference and lighted a fresh cigar over the lamp-chimney. “Tibbs wants to rent me the new store-room joining you, Jim,” he said, rolling his cigar into the corner of his mouth and half closing the eye which was in direct line with the rising smoke. “I kinder thought I’d like them big plate-glass show-windows. Ten thousand dollars in bran-new groceries wouldn’t be bad, would they?” Jim was taken slightly aback, but he recovered himself in an instant. “Not ef they was bought jest right, Harry,” he said, significantly. “A man _mought_ have a purty fair start that way, ef he was experienced; but law me! I’d hate awful to start to lay in a stock frum these cussed drummers; they are wholesale bunco-sharks. An’ then, you see, I’ve been here sence this town fust started, an’ I know who will do to credit an’ who won’t. My blacklist is wuth five thousand to any man in this line. Thar’s men in this town that ’ll pay a gamblin’ debt ‘thout a bobble, an’ cuss like rips at the sight of a grocery bill. But thar ain’t no use talkin’; I reckon my business ain’t fer sale.”