"All the same to me. I can wait; that's part of my work." She shifted ground uneasily, and finally burst out, "He's in the kitchen, Will Turnpike, and you can go in yourself. He's wild today." William walked solemnly through to the kitchen where Jonas was sitting by the window in a great arm-chair. A weird-looking figure he was, muffled in an old overcoat, though it was summer and the day was warm. A growth of untrimmed whiskers through which peered crafty eyes, and a mass of long matted hair topping a big head, gave an uncanny appearance to the man, who was a helpless cripple through rheumatism. He glared at William, who cordially expressed the hope that he was feeling a little better. "Is that what she let you in for?" he demanded fiercely. "Well, I didn't just put it to her in that way, if you mean your daughter," said William calmly. "I'm after some money, to tell you the truth." "Money!" the old man shrieked the word. "You heard me first time," returned William politely, "and ain't you glad your sickness don't hinder your hearing some?" "Money!" shouted the old man again. "Money! What do you want money from me for?" "The rent," said William calmly--"two months, due to-day. You can read, I believe," and he held before the old man's face two receipts, properly made out for the amounts due. "I see," he said, pointing to an open letter on the window sill, "that you got Mister Whimple's note about it. I'm the coll-ect-or he speaks of." "You!" "The same, Mister Jonas." The man glared at him savagely, and then shouted, "You--you--get t'hades out of this." "Sure, I'll get out as soon as I get the rent. But as for the place you speak of--not for mine. This is a good enough world for me, Mister Jonas." The old man fumed in helpless rage. He cursed William and his family and their antecedents, cursed his daughter, cursed everybody and everything for a full five minutes, and ended up with the declaration, "I haven't got any money." William silently regarded him for a moment, and then leaning forward a little said, very clearly, "Well, I guess you ain't making so much as you uster when you sold light-weight coal on the big contract from the city, but I'm told on the best au-thor-ity, Mister Jonas, that you ain't ever likely to know what it means to be without money." For a long time then they looked at each other, fear on the old man's face, William inwardly troubled, outwardly cool and unruffled. The old man broke the silence. "Mary, Mary," he screamed, and his daughter ran to him, "pay this young ruffian two months' rent, and get the receipts from him, and if you ever let him in again--I'll--I'll kill you."