“He fell right in with the line of dope mighty easy and comfortable. You see it was something like the way they do things up in his country. The old uncle or the family lawyer calls on you, when ma thinks that things are pretty well understood with the young people, and gits down to figgerin’. It was near enough to my line to go across with him. He knew that the girl hadn’t got any men folk, so an old friend of the family would fit the form as a sort of next-of-kin, as the law-books say.” The big man linked his fingers together on the chair arm. “As I was sayin’, he walked right in and made himself at home with the notion. He called her ‘Carrots’ straight back at me; it was ‘Kiss her, pap; she’s our’n now,’ and he begun to grin. “On the soul of Satan, man, it was all I could do to keep my foot away from him. I wanted to hoist him out of that chair and skite him around among the furniture—but I had to keep my poker face on. “He bounced up and got a box of cigars and a little dish full of matches and shoved them across the table. I took one, bit the end off, scratched the match on my foot, lighted it, and went ahead. “‘It’s the butt end of what she’s got,’ I says, ‘an’ it’s in the door.’ “He knew all about business, and he picked the things right out. “‘You mean,’ he says, ‘that her solicitor has invested her fortune in a stock on margin and the market is declining?’ “‘You got it,’ I says, ‘only she done it herself, on some tip from her swell friends.’ “‘How extraordinary!’ he piped; his voice got thin when it hit money. ‘Is it a legitimate stock?’ “‘Sure,’ I answered, ‘one of the six good ones.’ I didn’t know how many good ones there was. “‘Why does it decline?’ His voice went up like a singing school. “‘The steel bunch are clubbing it,’ I says. “He understood that, and began to finger around his little wax mustache. “‘Quite so,’ he cheeped, ‘quite so.’ Then he squared toward me. “‘Ah—er, Mr. Johnson,’ he says, ‘I fauncy you came with some plan about it.’ “‘Plan nothin’,’ I says; ‘the stuff’s got to be covered—they’ll git it beat under her figger in another day’s poundin’.’ “‘Ah—er—quite so,’ he was cool as a julep; ‘you are intending, I fauncy, to cover the margin?’ “I leaned over the table and blew a mouthful of smoke on him. “‘Sure!’ I roared in his face, ‘if I can get fifty thousand dollars, quick.’ “He ducked out of the smoke. “‘That’s a very large sum of money,’ he says. “I lolled over the table an’ smoked on him like a Dutch uncle. “‘Big money!’ I gurgled it, like a man choking on a laugh. ‘Do you know how much Carrots has got hanging on it?’ “He didn’t answer that; I knew he wouldn’t. “‘Where, precisely, do you expect to get this money?’ he says. “I set up more calm like at that. “‘Well,’ I says, ‘I thought maybe we could raise it together.’ “He wanted that fake fortune saved for him, so it would come along with the girl, but he wanted somebody else to carry the chance.