"Why should you?" Gordon interrupted
brusquely, annoyed by this searching into the reason
for his purchase of the farm, into the region of his
memories.

"I didn't come here to ask questions," the other
quickly assured him; "but to borrow four thousand
dollars."

"Why not forty?" Gordon asked dryly.

"Because I couldn't put it out at profit, now."
Edgar Crandall ignored the other's factitious manner:
"but I can turn four over two or three times
in a reasonable period. I can't give you any security,
everything's covered I own; that's why I came
to you."

"You heard I was a fool with some money?"

"You didn't ask any security of Alexander," he
retorted. "No, I came to you because there was
something different in what you did from all I had
ever known before. I can't tell what I mean; it had
a -- well, a sort of big indifference about it. It
seemed to me perhaps life hadn't got you in the fix
it had most of us; that you were free."

"You must think I'm free -- with four thousand
dollars."

"Apples," the other continued resolutely. "I've
got the ground, acres of prime sunny slope. I've
read about apple growing and talked to men who
know. I've been to Albermarle County. I can do

[[297]]

p296 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p297w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p298

v?