Henley sat down on it, and as he did so he drew out a couple of cigars, and, holding them in the shape of a letter V, he extended them toward the old man. "I'm advertising a new brand," he said, cordially. "Take one, and whenever you want a good smoke drop in. You'll find 'em as free from cabbage-leaves as any in this town. One thing certain, you don't have to bore a hole through 'em to start circulation."
"Drumming up trade, eh?" The money-lender smiled as he took the cigar, and, pinching off the tip with his long thumb-nail, he thrust it between his gashed and stained teeth. "Well, I don't blame any man for trying to turn a penny during hard times like these. But, Lord, Alf, you'd make a living if you was on a bare rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I take off my hat to any man that could handle a busted circus like you did. I wouldn't have touched that pile of junk at your figure if it had been given to me, and yet--well, every man to his line."
Henley scratched a match on the sole of his shoe and lighted his cigar. "I've been just a little afraid that your nephew--that Hank Bradley may have told you about the little spat me and him had at the store the other day--"
"I heard it," Welborne broke in, with an indifferent smile. "I was standing in the door; he was full; he ought to have been kicked out; you done right; he's a lazy, good-for-nothing scamp, but don't talk to me about him. I pay him what is coming to him, board him for next to nothing, and there my responsibility ends. I'm not fighting his battles--huh, I guess not! How's trade over your way?"
"N. G." Henley puffed, squinting his right eye to avoid the smoke which curled up from the end of his cigar, as he looked absently at the dingy window-panes and the cobwebs hanging from the cracked and bulging plastering overhead. "We can sell plenty on tick, but getting paid is the devil. Jim Cahews is a good man, but he can't say no--to a petticoat, anyway. While I was away he went it rather reckless. Why, he let one little woman that has heretofore been the brag of the county get in clean up to her neck."
Old Welborne ceased smoking; his dim, blue eyes twinkled. "I'll bet a dollar to a ginger-cake I know who you mean," he said, eagerly.