The lawyer watched him over the tip of his cigar. He saw that in spite of the gay show of spirit, his hands twitched, that his puffy face was scarlet, while what hair time had left him was snow white. He had aged, too, in those years, so that Benson would scarce have known him. Yet Julia had done what she could for him. His clothes were new, his linen fresh, and the lawyer correctly surmised that he had himself met the cost of this excellent outfit. It was a long glance back to Gibbs of the True Whig; florid, good-looking, good-natured, aggressive Nathan Gibbs, who had made love to Levi Tucker's wife, under Levi Tucker's very nose, in Levi Tucker's own Red Brick Tavern on the square. He had not withheld his hand; he had taken ruthlessly what he had desired—Tucker's wife, Tucker's life, and he had spent Tucker's fortune. Benson's lips parted in a slight smile. If ever a man had gone swiftly to his desires, Gibbs was that man. Chance had been more than generous—as generous as it had been to him—the smile left his lips. He frowned; surely he had nothing in common with Gibbs—no analogy was possible! “What are you going to do for me, Jake?” insisted Gibbs. An inner sense of things told him that he must have at least a semblance of occupation, that idleness would be his ruin. “Make a place for me somewhere, Jake, I don't care what it is,” he pleaded. “Give me something that will keep me busy.” He was silent for a minute and puffed greedily at his cigar, with coarse protruding lips. “I been brought down to hell, Jake, I've seen the sides of the pit.” He said at last. “I never could do anything after Grant City busted. You can't see where it was now. I been away from there for seven or eight years, in Kansas City and back in St. Louis, but I never got a grip on things; and when I began to hear people talking about old Gibbs, I got the notion that I was counted past my prime. Well, I couldn't pull up; a man's luck and a man's habits generally travel in company when he's sixty odd. But you've put stiffening in my backbone. My Julia will have no cause to complain from now on. A woman of remarkable force of character, Jake—you'll recognize that when you come to know her better. Now how are you going to use me? We ain't settled that yet.” “I don't know yet; I can't tell,” said Benson slowly. Gibbs's face clouded. “Look here, Jake, don't you take up with any snap judgment that I'm past my usefulness; just give me a chance. Because a man's no longer of much account to himself, it don't necessarily follow that he's no good to any one else.”