bell, which she had been pressing intermittently. "You
haven't told me your name yet."

He hesitated.

"Call me Dave."

"Then... Dave," she laughed with pretty confusion. "Something must be
done for you. You are a young man, and you are just at the beginning
of a bad start. If you begin by attempting to collect what you think is
coming to you, later on you will be collecting what you are perfectly
sure isn't coming to you. And you know what the end will be. Instead of
this, we must find something honorable for you to do."

"I need the money, and I need it now," he replied doggedly. "It's not
for myself, but for that friend I told you about. He's in a peck of
trouble, and he's got to get his lift now or not at all."

"I can find you a position," she said quickly. "And--yes, the very
thing!--I'll lend you the money you want to send to your friend. This
you can pay back out of your salary."

"About three hundred would do," he said slowly. "Three hundred would
pull him through. I'd work my fingers off for a year for that, and my
keep, and a few cents to buy Bull Durham with."

"Ah! You smoke! I never thought of it."

Her hand went out over the revolver toward his hand, as she pointed to
the tell-tale yellow stain on his fingers. At the same time her eyes
measured the nearness of her own hand and of his to the weapon. She
ached to grip it in one swift movement. She was sure she could do
it, and yet she was not sure; and so it was that she refrained as she
withdrew her hand.

"Won't you smoke?" she invited.

"I'm 'most dying to."

"Then do so. I don't mind. I really like it--cigarettes, I mean."

With his left band he dipped into his side pocket, brought out a
loose wheat-straw paper and shifted it to his right hand close by the
revolver. Again he dipped, transferring to the paper a pinch of brown,
flaky tobacco. Then he proceeded, both hands just over the revolver, to
roll the cigarette.

"From the way you hover close to that nasty weapon, you seem to be
afraid of me," she challenged.

"Not exactly afraid of you, ma'am, but, under the circumstances, just a
mite timid."

"But I've not been afraid of you."

"You've got nothing to lose."

"My life," she retorted.

"That's right," he acknowledged promptly, "and you ain't been scairt of
me. Mebbe I am over anxious."

"I wouldn't cause you any harm."

Even as she spoke, her slipper felt for the bell and pressed it. At the
same time her eyes were earnest