"Well, you know your own business best, of course, Mr. Tescheron. If you really don't fear the publicity, why did you engage me at all? Why did you go to any expense whatever? Of course, it is foolish, as you say, to spend money to avoid that which you do not fear. Go back and take your medicine; let your wife and daughter take theirs. Go back by all means; start to-morrow. Don't delay."
That fellow Smith certainly knew enough about fishing for men to fill a volume with pointers on the best lines, rods, and bait—artificial, worms or minnows. He knew just what he could do with a man restrained by fear, and filled with the idea that his money and superior business judgment would enable him to gain his ends in every emergency. A poor man is protected against many parasites by his lean purse. It gets back to the saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted"; but what impresses me at this turn of our narrative is the fact that the fool is only interesting up to the point of the parting. After that he is dropped from the plans of his pursuers. Notice of the failure of Mr. Tescheron's business in the reports of the day would have removed him from the realm of mystery to sure footing on the hard-pan of tough luck.
Mr. Tescheron had in his haste begun to find fault before he knew just what move to make. He realized that Smith read that fact in his manner and peevish complaining. He felt the hook in his gills. Smith felt the tug on the line. Perhaps at that interview he thought how like my advice this sarcastic statement from Smith seemed. At times he felt like a coward, and then encouraged himself to believe he was really a brave man, saving his loved ones from the blasting breath of scandal more awful than any calamity that might overtake them.
Smith's shrewd little brain turned on cash. Gold dollars were the ball bearings that eased its frictionless revolutions. Pine forests have their charms, no doubt, for those misguided creatures who enjoy the bracing ozone of the balsam-laden air. To Smith the pungent sap of the evergreen tree was a poor substitute for the stimulating essence of greenback, the cologne of greasy bills, and it would take a big pile of them to make the room "stuffy" enough to have him raise the window. When it came to drawing nigh to money, Mr. Smith was the pink of propinquity.
Noting that Mr. Tescheron had been subdued, Mr. Smith started to go. He bade his patron to be of good cheer, and promised him the outlook would surely brighten in time.
"Keep your seat a minute, Smith," urged Mr. Tescheron, whose ideas had been strengthened by the tonic of Smith's stimulating rejoinder, and I may add that the turn was about what Smith had planned to happen. "What are those papers you put back in your pocket?" The observing, gullible man of business was trying to swim where the current was a little too swift for him.
"Why, I had here a memorandum of what it would cost to have you go back and have the whole business hushed up forever."
"How much?"
"Three thousand dollars."
"Whew! That's a scorcher."