“Yes, suh, I counted it.”
“Was it all there, wasn’t it all right?”
“Yes, suh.”
“Well, then, there’s no need for me to count it, is there?”
The negro looked in wide white-eyed surprise.
“Did you take out what you wanted?” asked the Mayor.
“No, suh, I didn’t take any.”
“Here, then,” said Jones, and he gave the man a half-dollar and went on.
There was no possible ostentation in this; it was perfectly natural; he was doing such things every hour of the day.
He had no need to stop there, in the dark, to impress me, his friend and intimate. I do him wrong even to stoop to explain so much. But I wonder how much good his confidence did that wandering outcast? How much good did it do to me? By the operation of the same law which brought that vagrant back to Jones’s side with all the money, I with my distrust, might have been treated far differently.