“My wife laughed at it, but it made me mad enough. I said I would get even with the Wares, and I meant it. I kept it in mind for years, waiting a chance, but you don't always have a chance. There are some men and women you can't seem to hurt, and the Wares were two of them. He seemed to make plenty of money and keep out of things where I could have done him a bad turn. I got to be a director in the Riverbank National, but he never needed to borrow, so I couldn't hurt him there. His wife was always at the top of things, too. I couldn't hit her.
“Well, Ware died and everything went. The widow was as poor as a church mouse; I don't know how she got along. She was so poor she couldn't be hurt; she was like the dust you walk on—it's dust, and that's an end of it: it can't be anything less. She shut herself up, and was nothing. My wife was dead, anyway, and I couldn't hurt the widow by flaunting my wife and the position she had in the widow's face.
“Then this boy grew up—this Marty. I got him the place in the bank.”
“You did!” David exclaimed.
“It was the only way I could hit at the widow,” said Hardcome. “I thought maybe it would annoy her, to know I was the one that was helping her boy. Maybe it did. I never knew. When the cashier said it wasn't safe to keep him any longer I told Marty to tell his mother not to worry; that I would try to fix it so he could stay. I did manage to get them to keep him a few months longer; then they outvoted me.
“Then I got him the place in the freight office, but he couldn't hold it. A couple of times, when he lost his jobs, I took him in the store here. I knew that would annoy the old dame, and I guess it did. Then some of the Democrats picked him up and ran him for this job he has now. It made me mad that I couldn't say I had been back of that, but when it came to getting a couple of bondsmen I saw another chance to bother the old lady. I went on his bond.”
Hardcome unrolled the money in his hand and smoothed it out.
“You knew my wife, dominie;” he continued slowly. “Some people did not like her, but I did. I never had any complaint to make about her; she was a good wife. So it sort of seemed to me—when Turrill came to me and told me what Marty had done—and I remembered how that woman had slammed her door in my wife's face, so to say—that this was my chance—my chance to get even once for all.”
He stopped, folded the bills, and slipped them into his pocket.
“You see,” he said, “you didn't know the whole story. It would have been something of a windup to send the boy to the penitentiary. I guess that would have taken the old lady off her high horse. But I don't know. I don't want to kill the boy's soul, or anybody's soul. I guess I'll make good what he is short, and take him into the store here again.”