efore proceeding any further in it. How can I tell but one of you is
trying to get an advantage over the other?"

The pair looked startled at this, but it was only, I found, because
they were so astonished at having such a construction put upon their
project.

"Don't be alarmed," I hastened to say. "I wasn't serious."

But Vibbard persisted in a dogged expression of gloom.

"It's always this way," he presently declared, in a heavy, provoked
tone. "My father, you know, is a shrewd man, and everybody is forever
accusing me of being mean and overreaching. But I never dreamed that
it could be imputed in such a move as--well, never mind!" he suddenly
exclaimed in a loud voice, and with assumed indifference, getting up
from his chair. "Of course it's all over now. I sha'n't do anything
more about it, after what Ferguson has said." He was so sulky that he
had to resort to thus putting me in the third person, although he was
not addressing these words to Silverthorn. Then he gave his thick
frame a slight shake, as if to get rid of the disagreeable feelings I
had excited, and turned toward his friend. On the instant there came
into his unmoved eyes and his matter-of-fact countenance a look of
sentiment so incongruous as to be almost laughable. "I wish I could
have done it, Thorny," said he, wistfully.

"Hold on, Vibbard," I interposed. "Don't be discouraged."

He paid no attention.

Upon this Silverthorn fired up.

"Hullo, Bill, this won't do! Do you suppose I'm going to let our pet
arrangement drop that way and leave you to be so misconstrued? Come
back here and sit down." (Vibbard was already at the door.) "As for
_your_ getting any advantage out of this, is it likely? Why, you are
well off now, to begin with; that is, your father is; and I am poor,
downright poor--Ferguson must have seen that."

Here was a surprise! The dreamy youth was proving himself much more
sensible than the beefy and practical one. Vibbard, however, seemed to
enjoy being admonished by Silverthorn, and resumed his seat quite
meekly. To me, in my balancing frame of mind, it occurred that one
might go farther than Silverthorn had done, in saying that any
advantage to Vibbard was very improbable; one might assume that it was
surely Silverthorn who would reap the profit. But I decided not to
disturb the already troubled waters any more.

Silverthorn, however, expressed this idea: "You'll be thinking," he
said to me, with a smile, "that _I_ am goi