“Yes, of course,” with an impatient laugh, “but that is somebody else’s money, not mine.  I want to get some of my own.”

“Sho! . . .  Well, I cal’late I could let you have ten or twenty dollars right now, if that would be any help to you.”

“It wouldn’t; thank you just the same.  If it was five hundred instead of ten, why—­perhaps I shouldn’t say no.”

Jed was startled.

“Five hundred?” he repeated.  “Five hundred dollars?  Do you need all that so very bad, Charlie?”

Phillips, his foot upon the threshold of the outer shop, turned and looked at him.

“The way I feel now I’d do almost anything to get it,” he said, and went out.

Jed told no one of this conversation, although his friend’s parting remark troubled and puzzled him.  In fact it troubled him so much that at a subsequent meeting with Charles he hinted to the latter that he should be glad to lend the five hundred himself.

“I ought to have that and some more in the bank,” he said.  “Sam would know whether I had or not. . . .  Eh?  Why, and you would, too, of course.  I forgot you know as much about folks’ bank accounts as anybody. . . .  More’n some of ’em do themselves, bashfulness stoppin’ me from namin’ any names,” he added.

Charles looked at him.  “Do you mean to tell me, Jed Winslow,” he said, “that you would lend me five hundred dollars without any security or without knowing in the least what I wanted it for?”

“Why—­why, of course.  ’Twouldn’t be any of my business what you wanted it for, would it?”

“Humph!  Have you done much lending of that kind?”

“Eh? . . .  Um. . . .  Well, I used to do consider’ble, but Sam he kind of put his foot down and said I shouldn’t do any more.  But I don’t have to mind him, you know, although I generally do because it’s easier—­and less noisy,” he added, with a twinkle in his eye.

“Well, you ought to mind him; he’s dead right, of course.  You’re a good fellow, Jed, but you need a guardian.”

Jed shook his head sadly.  “I hate to be so unpolite as to call your attention to it,” he drawled, “but I’ve heard somethin’ like that afore.  Up to now I ain’t found any guardian that needs me, that’s the trouble.  And if I want to lend you five hundred dollars, Charlie, I’m goin’ to.  Oh, I’m a divil of a feller when I set out to be, desperate and reckless, I am.”

Charlie laughed, but he put his hand on Jed’s shoulder, “You’re a brick, I know that,” he said, “and I’m a million times obliged to you.  But I was only joking; I don’t need any five hundred.”

“Eh? . . .  You don’t? . . .  Why, you said—­”

“Oh, I—­er—­need some new clothes and things and I was talking foolishness, that’s all.  Don’t you worry about me, Jed; I’m all right.”