, money is very
scarce and bank interest almost extortionate just now."

Barrington flushed a trifle, and there was anger in his face. He knew
the fact that his loss on this sale should cause him anxiety was
significant, and that Winston had surmised the condition of his
finances tolerably correctly.

"Have you not gone quite far enough?" he said.

Winston nodded. "I fancy I need ask no more, sir. You can scarcely
buy the wheat, and the banks will advance nothing further on what you
have to offer at Silverdale. It would be perilous to put yourself in
the hands of a mortgage broker."

Barrington stood up very grim and straight, and there were not many men
at Silverdale who would have met his gaze.

"Your content is a little too apparent, but I can still resent an
impertinence," he said. "Are my affairs your business?"

"Sit down, sir," said Winston. "I fancy they are, and had it not been
necessary, I would not have ventured so far. You have done much for
Silverdale, and it has cost you a good deal, while it seems to me that
every man here has a duty to the head of the settlement. I am,
however, not going to urge that point, but have, as you know, a
propensity for taking risks. I can't help it. It was probably born in
me. Now, I will take that contract up for you."

Barrington gazed at him in bewildered astonishment.

But you would lose on it heavily. How could you overcome a difficulty
that is too great for me?"

"Well," said Winston, with a little smile, "it seems I have some
ability in dealing with these affairs."

Barrington did not answer for a while, and when he spoke it was slowly.
"You have a wonderful capacity for making any one believe in you."

"That is not the point," said Winston. "If you will let me have the
contract, or, and it comes to the same thing, buy the wheat it calls
for, and if advisable sell as much again, exactly as I tell you, at my
risk and expense, I shall get what I want out of it. My affairs are a
trifle complicated and it would take some little time to make you
understand how this would suit me. In the meanwhile you can give me a
mere I O U for the difference between what you sold at, and the price
today, to be paid without interest and whenever it suits you. It isn't
very formal, but you will have to trust me."

Barrington moved twice up and down the room before he turned to the
younger man. "Lance," he said, "when you first came here, any deal of
this kind