"And his sons and his daughters and his grandchildren never could get him out of those ways; he always was bull-headed about doing what he pleased, so Mrs. Hodgkins told me, and he always will be. And the old lady liked to see him and chin with him and cook for him; and believe me, she was some cook when she set herself to it. Not merely kale, but everything. She didn't cook for the Hergsheimers--they had a chef for that--but they missed it by not having her. Victuals was old Mary's middle name, and she could rustle up some of the best grub you ever threw your lip over.
"At first, Old Man Singleton and Mrs. Hodgkins didn't mix much with us younger folks when we pulled a party. It wasn't that we were too aristocratic for them, for off duty, as I said before, butlers and other swells can be as easy and jolly as common people. But they seemed too antiquated, if you get me; they were living too much in the past.
"And then, one night, I discovered what Old Man Singleton's fad was--kale. Money. Big money. Big money on his person. It was this way: Larry and I wanted to go downtown and have a little fun, but neither of us had any cash in hand. Larry had a check for one hundred and fifty dollars which Jake Hergsheimer had sent him, but all the tradesmen we knew were closed at that hour, and there wasn't any way to cash it, unless Old Man Singleton could.
"'Mr. Singleton,' says Larry to the old man, who was sitting down to a mess of pork and kale with Mrs. Hodgkins, 'maybe you can cash this for me.' And he handed him the check.
"The old man stopped eating and put his glasses on and pulled a billfolder out of his pocket, with a kind of pleased smile on his face.
"'Let me see,' he says, taking out the bills, and running them over with his fingers; 'let me see.'
"I nearly dropped dead. There wasn't a bill in there of lower denomination than one thousand dollars; and most of them were ten-thousand-dol-lar bills.
"'No, Larry,' says the old man, 'I'm afraid I can't, afraid I can't--haven't got the change.'
"And while we stood there and looked, he smoothed and patted those bills, and folded and refolded them, and then put them back into his pocket, and patted the pocket.
"'Mary,' he says to the old woman with a grin, 'that's quite a lot of money for little Lem Singleton to be carrying around in his pocket, isn't it?' "'It is that, Lemuel,' said the old lady, 'and I should think you'd be afraid of leaving it out of the bank.'