Jed did not answer.  The word “worry” had reminded him of his other visitor that morning.  He looked so serious that his friend repeated his adjuration.

“Don’t worry, I tell you,” he said, again. “’Tisn’t worth it.”

“All right, I won’t. . . .  I won’t. . . .  Sam, I was thinkin’ about you afore you came in.  You remember I told you that?”

“I remember.  What have you got on your mind?  Any more money kickin’ around this glory-hole that you want me to put to your account?”

“Eh? . . .  Oh, yes, I believe there is some somewheres.  Seems to me I put about a hundred and ten dollars, checks and bills and such, away day before yesterday for you to take when you came.  Maybe I’ll remember where I put it before you go.  But ’twan’t about that I was thinkin’.  Sam, how is Barzilla Small’s boy, Lute, gettin’ along in Gus Howes’ job at the bank?”

Captain Sam snorted disgust.

“Gettin’ along!” he repeated.  “He’s gettin’ along the way a squid swims, and that’s backwards.  And, if you asked me, I’d say the longer he stayed the further back he’d get.”

“Sho! then he did turn out to be a leak instead of an able seaman, eh?”

“A leak!  Gracious king!  He’s like a torpedo blow-up under the engine-room.  The bank’ll sink if he stays aboard another month, I do believe.  And yet,” he added, with a shake of the head, “I don’t see but he’ll have to stay; there ain’t another available candidate for the job in sight.  I ’phoned up to Boston and some of our friends are lookin’ around up there, but so far they haven’t had any success.  This war is makin’ young men scarce, that is young men that are good for much.  Pretty soon it’ll get so that a healthy young feller who ain’t in uniform will feel about as much out of place as a hog in a synagogue.  Yes, sir!  Ho, ho!”

He laughed in huge enjoyment of his own joke.  Jed stared dreamily at the adjusting screw on the handsaw.  His hands clasped his knee, his foot was lifted from the floor and began to swing back and forth.

“Well,” queried his friend, “what have you got on your mind?  Out with it.”

“Eh? . . .  On my mind?”

“Yes.  When I see you begin to shut yourself together in the middle like a jackknife and start swinging that number eleven of yours I know you’re thinkin’ hard about somethin’ or other.  What is it this time?”

“Um . . . well . . . er . . .  Sam, if you saw a chance to get a real smart young feller in Lute’s place in the bank you’d take him, wouldn’t you?”

“Would I?  Would a cat eat lobster?  Only show him to me, that’s all!”

“Um-hm. . . .  Now of course you know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Lute.  Not for the world I wouldn’t.  It’s only if you are goin’ to let him go—­”

“If I am.  Either he’ll have to let go or the bank will, one or t’other.  United we sink, divided one of us may float, that’s the way I look at it.  Lute’ll stay till we can locate somebody else to take his job, and no longer.”