Albion sat down. They sat close together in the darkness some moments and were silent.
“You ain't hurt?” Albion asked at last. “We'll get out.”
They went up the steep, groping and stumbling.
Albion half lifted his enemy into the buckboard, and led the horse, his own following. They were out into the now almost faded daylight. Jay sat holding his lines, bowed over, meek and venerable. The front of his coat was torn. Albion came to his wheel.
“Will twenty dollars make peace between you and me, Jay Dee?”
“The costs was ten,” piping sadly.
“Thirty dollars, Jay Dee? Here it is.”
He jumped into his buggy and drove rapidly. In sight of the foundry he drew a huge breath.
“I been a sinner and a fool,” and slapped his knee. “It's sixty thousand dollars, maybe seventy. A self-righteous sinner and a cocksure fool. God forgive me!”
Between eight and nine Jay Dee sat down before his meagre fire and rusty stove, drank his weak tea and toasted his bread. The windows clicked with the night wind. The furniture was old, worn, unstable, except the large desk behind him full of pigeonholes and drawers. Now and then he turned and wrote on scraps of paper. Tea finished, he collected the scraps and copied: