“I don’t have the least idee,” blandly returned Badger, crossing his knees. “We all trust the Jedge to ’tend to that. _He_ knows.” “So you are goin’ to let your money stay with the Judge, hey?” “Well--blorh hum! Well, as I was sayin’, Jedge Willard seems to be perfickly square about makin’ it right and--and--well, Capt’in, nat’rally it’s--it’s bus’ness--well, to make it an object to shift you might---there’s the taxes, too----” “You old harker,” cried Hiram, irefully, “what you want me to say is that I’ll pay you eight per cent.! ‘You’ve been whifflin’ back and forth for two months between Judge Willard and me. I thought you got all ready to die a while ago. What are you waitin’ for--to place your money out at eight per cent, first?” “I ain’t goin’ to die,” blurted Badger. “A man’s got the right to change his mind, ain’t he? And they’ve found out about that Mis’ Achorn. She used a wax hand to make folks believe ’twas some one dead that was touchin’ ’em and---” “Shet up!” barked Hiram. “Do you think I’ve been in the circus line thirty years to need to have fakes explained to me? It’s bus’ness I want to talk with you, Sum. Don’t you read your town report, you fool? Don’t you know that Judge Willard says there over his name that this town owes only a little over two thousand dollars? And yet you know, yourself, that he has borrowed seven thousand from you on a town note! Don’t you stop to think about those things? And now I’ll tell you something to make your hair curl! I have found out that there are twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of town notes held around here by just such old blind moles as you are that he has told to keep still. Lord knows how many more there are. I don’t imagine that some would let it out if you took a knife to ’em.” He wiped the perspiration from his face and gazed at Badger as though he expected the information to wilt him. The avenger of the wrongs of the Looks was not entirely ready with the thunderbolt that he was forging for the town treasurer of Palermo, but the serenity of the dollar-blinded Badger exasperated him. For a test he wanted to see how one citizen of Palermo would receive the disclosure. “I tell you your treasurer is fooling the whole of ye!” he shouted. “He has stolen from your town.” The creditor blinked at him. “Now will you sit by and let him fool you with his talk of makin’ it right? Now will you try to screw eight per cent, out of me who’s tryin’ to bring him to the ring bolt? Now will you hand that note over to me or pitch in and collect it yourself?” To Hiram’s intense astonishment Badger slowly leaned forward, set his elbows on his knees, began to tap his finger-tips together, winked one eye, and smiled shrewdly and composedly.