ou accept a drink of water
from one of the Twelve Apostles if you was dying of thirst? Or would
you be afraid of his evil intentions"--she made a gesture of dissent
"--or of what folks might say about it?"

"But that's different," she began.

"Now look here, Miss Mason. You've got to get some foolish notions out
of your head. This money notion is one of the funniest things I've
seen. Suppose you was falling over a cliff, wouldn't it be all right
for me to reach out and hold you by the arm? Sure it would. But
suppose you ended another sort of help--instead of the strength of arm,
the strength of my pocket? That would be all and that's what they all
say. But why do they say it. Because the robber gangs want all the
suckers to be honest and respect money. If the suckers weren't honest
and didn't respect money, where would the robbers be? Don't you see?
The robbers don't deal in arm-holds; they deal in dollars. Therefore
arm-holds are just common and ordinary, while dollars are sacred--so
sacred that you didn't let me lend you a hand with a few.

"Or here's another way," he continued, spurred on by her mute protest.
"It's all right for me to give the strength of my arm when you're
falling over a cliff. But if I take that same strength of arm and use
it at pick-and-shovel work for a day and earn two dollars, you won't
have anything to do with the two dollars. Yet it's the same old
strength of arm in a new form, that's all. Besides, in this
proposition it won't be a claim on you. It ain't even a loan to you.
It's an arm-hold I'm giving your brother--just the same sort of
arm-hold as if he was falling over a cliff. And a nice one you are, to
come running out and yell 'Stop!' at me, and let your brother go on
over the cliff. What he needs to save his legs is that crack in
Germany, and that's the arm-hold I'm offering.

"Wish you could see my rooms. Walls all decorated with horsehair
bridles--scores of them--hundreds of them. They're no use to me, and
they cost like Sam Scratch. But there's a lot of convicts making them,
and I go on buying. Why, I've spent more money in a single night on
whiskey than would get the best specialists and pay all the expenses of
a dozen cases like your brother's. And remember, you've got nothing to
do with this. If your brother wants to look on it as a loan, all
right. It's up to him, and you've got to stand out of the way while I
pull him back from that cliff."

Still Dede