"That's a large offer, but I'm afraid of it," replied the Idiot. "It partakes of the nature of a speculation. It's dealing in futures, which is not a safe thing for a financial institution to do, I don't care how solid it is. You don't catch the Chemistry National Bank lending money to anybody on mere prospects, and, what is more, in my case, I'd have to get sick to win out. No, Doctor, that proposition does not appeal to me." "Looks hopeless, doesn't it," said the Doctor. "Mary, tell the boy to wait while I run up-stairs--" "I wouldn't do that," said the Idiot, interrupting. "The matter can be arranged in another way. I honestly don't like to lend money, believing with Polonius that it's a bad thing to do. As the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina, who owed him a hundred dollars, 'It's a long time between payments on account,' and that sort of thing breaks up families, not to mention friendships. But I will match you for it." "How can I match when I haven't anything to match with?" said the Doctor, growing a trifle irritable. "You can match your credit against my quarter," said the Idiot. "We can make it a mental match--a sort of Christian Science gamble. What am I thinking of, heads or tails?" "Heads," said the Doctor. "By Jove, that's hard luck!" ejaculated the Idiot. "You lose. I was thinking of tails." "Oh, thunder!" cried the Doctor, impatiently. "Try it again, double or quits. What am I thinking of?" said the Idiot. "Heads," repeated the Doctor. "Somebody must have told you. Heads it is. You win. We are quits, Doctor," said the Idiot. "But I am still without the quarter," the physician observed. "Yep," said the Idiot. "But there's one more way out of it. I'll buy the telegram from you--C.O.D." "Done," said the Doctor, holding out the message. "Here's your goods." "And there's your money," said the Idiot, tossing the quarter across the table. "If you want to buy this message back at any time within the next sixty days, Doctor, I'll give you the refusal of it without extra charge." And he folded the paper up and put it away in his pocketbook. "Do the banks really ask for so much security when they make a loan?" asked the Poet. "Hear him, will you!" cried the Idiot. "There's your lucky man. He's never had to face a bank president in order to avoid the cold glances of the grocer. No cashier ever asked him how many times he had been sentenced to states-prison before he'd discount his note. Do they ask security? Security isn't the name for it. They demand a blockade, establish a quarantine. They require the would-be debtor to build up a wall as high as Chimborazo and as invulnerable as Gibraltar between them and the loss before they will part with a dime. Why, they wouldn't discount a note to his own order for Andrew Carnegie for seventeen cents without his indorsement. Do they ask security!"