Garwood remained silent until he had finished his cigar, disliking to interrupt his own pleasure in it by opening the subject that then was on his heart. But at length he began to talk to her about his campaign, and it was a stimulant to her pride to hear his confidences. She was more pleased than distressed when he spoke in a discouraged tone of his prospects. She knew he was of a desponding temperament, another heritage from his father, and it pleased her to try to cheer him. "Oh, you'll be 'lected," she insisted. "Your mother's prayin', my son, and she has faith in her prayers." Garwood laughed, with a touch of the harsh skepticism she was always combating in him. "I'm afraid we need money just now, as much as prayers," he said. "Money?" she asked, pausing in her darning, and looking up at him inquiringly. "Yes," he said. "There are legitimate expenses in a campaign you know, that a candidate has to meet." And then he told her what the legitimate expenses were. "Some of the boys--Jim Rankin and some others--suggested that I ought to go to Mr. Harkness," he said, when he had finished. He had adroitly calculated the effect this suggestion would have upon her, and he was certain of her reply. "Go to Mr. Harkness, would they? Humph!" Her eyes blazed as she almost snorted this. "I'd have them know if we are poor we're not goin' to be beholden to the Harknesses in any such way as that!" "That's just what I told them," said the son, quietly. "An' you told 'em just right!" she added. She returned to her darning, holding up the sock, stretched over her extended fingers, before the lamp. "But I don't know whom to go to," Garwood said presently, "and I've got to go to somebody." "Can't you possibly get along somehow?" she asked. "Tell 'em you just ain't got any money to give 'em." Garwood gave a contemptuous "Humph!" and then, made impatient by her utter failure to comprehend the grim necessity of a candidate's position with election but a week away, he said: "Didn't I just say I'd got to have some?" "Well, mother don't pretend to know about politics. Your pa never had anything to do with 'em, you know." She hastened to say this in her mild voice, to conciliate his petulance with her. "Oh, I know, mother," he rejoined; "but it's a ground-hog case with me. I've got to meet my assessments some way. It wouldn't be honourable not to." He stretched out his long legs and gazed into the grate. "I'll have to borrow of some one, I don't know who." He slid farther down into his chair and crowded his hands into his trousers' pockets, a physical posture at one with his mental attitude. "I don't know what I'm going to do." He was scowling, his face was long, and he said this with the deep tone of a final and absolute despair. "Some one will lend it to you," the mother said. "You mustn't get so down-hearted." "Well, I'd like to know who!" he said, casting a challenge at her from his eyes. "Why, some o' the banks--they loan money."