“They ’lowed I uz a side-show,” Jed told Chet. “I knowed they thought so, but long as they paid my way, I didn’t mind. Went along down and did my business at the bank. Then they took me to supper at a tavern and tried to git me drunk; got drunk theirselves. Then we went to a show. Say, Chet, they was the funniest man in that show I ever see. I set between these two, and they kep’ a-looking at me, and I was like to bust, I wanted to laugh so bad. I never did see such a funny man. But I didn’t much as grin; it near killed me. Say, when I got into bed that night, I like’ to died laughing, just thinking about him. But they didn’t know that.” “I asked him,” Chet explained, “why he didn’t want to laugh in the theater, and he says, ‘I wouldn’t give them two that much satisfaction.’ So he saved it up till he got alone. That’s how mean he was.” This man had been born in Fraternity, and his brother Nehemiah and his sisters Abigail and Deborah always lived in the town. No one of them was ever to marry. They were dwelling together in the house where their father and mother had lived when Jed came back to Fraternity and settled down to a business in usury, lending out money on iron-clad notes, and collecting on the nail. He was a timorous man, forever fearful lest by force or by stealth he be robbed of the tin box of paper that represented his fortune; therefore he hid the box ingeniously, sharing the secret with no living man. Jed was already old, and his sixtieth birthday came in 1881. He had bought a little hillside farm, where he lived alone; but in that year his loneliness became oppressive to him, and he sought out his brother ’Miah with a proposal that he had carefully planned. Before ’Miah’s eyes old Jed spread out all the kingdoms of the world. That is to say, he showed his brother the tin box of notes, showed all his wealth to the other man. He was worth at this time twenty thousand dollars, a fortune in Fraternity. “It’s this a-way, ’Miah,” he explained. “I’m a-getting old, and mighty feeble sometimes. Can’t do for myself like I used. I could hire somebody to take care of me, but that don’t look just right. Seems like what I got ought to stay in the family, ’Miah. Don’t it look that way to you?” It did. ’Miah had no love for his brother; there was no basis for any such love, since Jed had gouged him as hungrily as he had gouged other men. Nevertheless, there was in Jed’s money a powerful conciliatory factor, and ’Miah, though weaker, was as avaricious as the older man. He asked: “What are you heading at, anyway?” “This here, ’Miah,” Jed replied. “You come on over here and fix to live with me and look out for me. You’re younger than I be, and I ain’t a well man, anyway. You do for me long as I live, and I’ll fix it so you heir my prop’ty. Ain’t that a right fair thing?”