"Let's chop out the Sunday-school stuff, Kid!" cried Standing impatiently. "I don't need your lecturings. Maybe I'm not what your puling moralists call a good man, and maybe I'm not 'clean-hearted and pure' and all that drivel. But, by God, I'm a man who's got his own code and who sticks to it, blow high, blow low! A code that, if more men followed it, would give us a world with more men in it and fewer mollycoddle pups!" "It would appear," sneered Deveril, "that you remain well contented with yourself!" "Like the rest of humanity--he, she, and it!" said Timber-Wolf equably. "And so much for friendly chatter. Now a word whispered in your pretty ear, since the Lord knoweth how many busybodies are straining their own ears to listen-in on us." Lynette, in the hallway, stiffened and felt her face grow hot. But, with a strange new-born stubbornness, she remained where she was. Timber-Wolf came a step closer to Deveril, and, lowering his voice so that Lynette lost the words, he muttered: "I _am_ under obligations to you, my dear kinsman, and since there is a tough crowd in town, any man of whom would whack you over the head for a handful of silver, I am keeping this between us." He took his wallet from his pocket the second time, and drew from it several bank-notes. These he proffered to Deveril, his eyes still bright with his cold mirth. "Count it and stick it in your jeans," he said softly. "There's your three thousand. With it is another three thousand, the double of the bet which I promised you. And with that is another two thousand, which is a gain of ten per cent for you for six years, all rough figuring. In all eight thousand in coin of the realm ... and I'm much obliged," he ended mockingly, "for your generous loan!" Babe Deveril, taken off his feet by the unexpectedness of this, stared at the bank-notes in the great hard palm, and from them to the grinning face. And slowly, from a conflicting tumult of emotions, in which, strangely enough, anger surged highest, Deveril's face went violently red. "Damn you and your eternal posings!" Lynette caught those words, clear and high. But she missed the eloquence of the shrug into which Timber-Wolf's shoulders lifted. "It's up to you, Kid," said Standing, and still he kept his voice low and quiet. The money lay in his outstretched palm. "The minute I make my offer I consider my obligation fulfilled. If you are too proud to take it ... well, then, the devil take you for a fool, and I'll use the money elsewhere." Deveril put out his hand, selecting from the several bills. "My three thousand, I take," he said, "because it is mine. And the two thousand with it, judging that fair interest, considering the risks my money took. As for the rest--" he whipped back, and his voice, because of the emotions near choking him, was little more than a harsh whisper--"you can keep it and go to hell with it! I want none of your cursed charity!"