This, he told himself complacently, was but a description
of himself, as pointed as she dared to
make it. "A man who had had trouble couldn't
do better than tell you about it," he assured her;
"I have had a good lot of trouble."

"Well, tell me," she moved toward him.

"Oh!, you wouldn't care to hear about mine. I'm
a sort of nobody at present. I haven't anything in
the world -- no home, nothing in the whole world.
Even the little saving I had after the house was sold
was -- was taken from me by sharpers."

"Tell me," she repeated, "more."

"When Valentine Simmons had sold my place, the
place my grandfather built, I had about a thousand
dollars left, and I thought I would start a little
business with it, a... a gun store, -- I like guns,
-- here in Greenstream. And I'd sharpen scythes,
put sickles into condition, you know, things like
that. I went to Stenton with my capital in my
pocket, looking for some stock to open with, and
met a man in a hotel who said he was the representative
of the Standard Hardware Company. He
could let me have everything necessary, he said, at a
half of what others would charge. We had dinner
together, and he made a list of what I would need
-- files and vises and parts of guns. If I mailed my
cheque immediately I could get the half-off. He
had cards, catalogues, references, from Richmond.

[[120]]

p119 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p120w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p121

v?