“'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.'
“'Well, Mary,' says the old man, 'I kind o' like to have it around me all the time—uh—huh! a little bit where I can put my hands on it, all the time. I used to carry gold; but I gave that up; it's too heavy, for what it's worth. But I like it, Mary; I used to look at that gold and say to myself, “Well, there's one thing you got, Lem Singleton, they never thought you'd get when you left home! And they aren't going to take it away from you, either!” It was a long time before I could make paper seem as real to me as gold. But it does now.'
“And what does the old bird do but take it out of his pocket again and crinkle it through his fingers and smooth it out again and pet it and do everything but kiss it. Larry and I stood looking at him with our eyes sticking out, and he looked at us and laughed. It came to me all of a sudden that he liked to come where we servants were because he could pull that kind of thing in front of us, but that he was sort of lost among the swell-society bunch because he didn't dare pull it there and didn't feel so rich among them.
“'My God, Larry,' I said, when we were outside the house, 'did you notice how much kale the old man had there?'
“'Uh-huh,' said Larry. 'Mother always cooks a lot for him.'
“'Wake up, Stupid,' I said. 'I don't mean cabbage. I mean money. There must have been nearly two hundred thousand dollars in that roll!'
“'He always has around one hundred thousand dollars on him, at least,' says Larry. 'And I've seen him flash as high as a quarter of a million.'
“'Well,' I says, 'something ought to be done about it.'