ow,
perhaps, he couldn't pay at all.

"All right, Gadgem," he said slowly, a far-away, thoughtful look on his
face--"come to think of it I don't need two guns of this calibre, and
I am quite willing to let this one go, if it will oblige your friend."
Here Todd breathed a sigh of relief so loud and deep that his master
turned his head in inquiry. "As to the price--I'll look that up. Come
and see me again in a day or two. Better take the gun with you now."

The fight had been won, but the risk had been great. Even Pawson could
hardly believe his ears when Gadgem, five minutes later, related the
outcome of the interview.

"Well, then, it will be plain sailing so long as the rest of the things
last," said Pawson, handling the piece with a covetous touch. He too
liked a day off when he could get it. "Who will you sell the gun to,
Gadgem?"

"God knows--I don't! I'll borrow the money on it somehow--but I can't
see him suffer--no, sir--can't see him SUFfer. It's a pleasure to serve
him--real gentleman--REAL--do you hear, Pawson? No veneer--no sham--no
lies! Damn few such men, I tell you. Never met one before-never will
meet one again. Gave up everything he had for a rattle-brain young
scamp--BEGgared himself to pay his debts--not a drop of the fellow's
blood in his veins either--incredible--inCREDible! Got to handle him
like gunpowder or he'll blow everything into matchsticks. Find out the
price and I'll bring the money to-morrow. Do you pay it to him; I can't.
I'd feel too damn mean after lying to him the way I have. Feel that way
now. Good-day."

The same scene was practically repeated the following month. It was an
English saddle this time, St. George having two. And it was the same
unknown gentleman who figured as "the much-obliged friend," Pawson
conducting the negotiations and securing the owner's consent. On this
occasion Gadgem sold the saddle outright to the keeper of a livery
stable, whose bills he collected, paying the difference between the
asking and the selling price out of his own pocket.

Gradually, however, St. George awoke to certain unsuspected features of
what was going on around him. The discovery was made one morning when
the go-between was closeted in Pawson's lower office, Pawson conducting
the negotiations in St. George's dining-room. The young attorney,
with Gadgem's assistance, had staved off some accounts until a legal
ultimatum had been reached, and, having but few resources of his
own left,