"No, sir," said Lanigan; "you are wrong, and I am going to prove it to you, and you shall see that I trust you as if I had known you years instead of days. I want you to understand that I am not the same sort of fellow that I used to be, not by any means. I told old Petter that, so that he might have a little practice in treating me with respect, but I didn't give him any reasons for it, because Calthea Rose would be sure to suspect that he knew something, and she'd worm it out of him; but I don't believe she could worm anything out of you. When I left this place some eighteen months ago I went down to Central America and bought a banana farm, paying very little money down. In less than three months I sold my land to a company, and made a very good thing out of it. Then, thinking the company after a while might want more land, I bought another large tract, and before the end of the year I sold that to them, doubling my money. Then I left the tropics, fearing I might go too deep into that sort of speculation and lose every cent I had. I traveled around, and at last landed in Chicago, and here the money-making fever seized me again. It is a new thing to me, and a lot more intoxicating, I can tell you. I invested in oats, and before I knew it that blessed grain went up until, if its stalks had been as high as its price, it would have been over my head. I sold out, and then I said to myself: 'Now, Lanigan, my boy, if you don't want to be a beastly pauper for the rest of your life, you had better go home.' Honestly, I was frightened, and it seemed to me I should never be safe until I was back in Lethbury. Look here," he said, taking from a pocket a wallet filled with a mass of papers and a bank-book; "look at those certificates, and here is my New York bank-book, so you can see that I am not telling you lies.
"Now you may say that the fact of my having money doesn't prove that I am any better than I used to be, but if you think that, you are wrong. There is no better way to reform a fellow than to give him something to take care of and take an interest in. That's my case now, and all I've got I've given myself, which makes it better, of course. I'm not rich, but I've got enough to buy out any business in Lethbury. And to go into business and to live here are what will suit me better than anything else, and that's not counting in Ida Mayberry at all. To live here with her would be better luck than the biggest rise in oats the world ever saw. Now you see where I stand. If Mrs. Cristie goes against me, she does a cruel thing to me, and to Ida Mayberry besides."
"Why don't you tell her the facts?" said Lodloe. "That would be the straightforward and sensible thing to do."
"My dear boy," said Lanigan, "I cannot put the facts into the hands of a woman. No matter how noble or honorable she may be, without the least intention on her part they would leak out, and if Calthea Rose should get hold of them I should be lost. She'd drop old Tippengray like a hot potato and stick to me like one of those adhesive plasters that have holes in them. No, sir; I don't want Calthea Rose to think well of me. I want her to keep on considering me as a good-for-nothing scapegrace, and, by George! it's easy enough to make her do that. It's all in her line of business. But I want other people to think well of me in a general way, and when Calthea and Tippengray have settled things between them, and are traveling on the Continent, which they certainly ought to do, I'll start in business, and take my place as one of the leading citizens of Lethbury; and, as things look now, all will be plain sailing if Mrs. Cristie thinks well enough of me not to interfere between me and Ida Mayberry. Now all I ask of you is to say a good word for me if you can get a chance."
"After what you have told me," said Lodloe, "I think I shall say it."
"Good for you!" cried Lanigan. "And if I go to Calthy and ask her to lend me the money to get a frame made for Mrs. Petter's fire-screen, don't you be surprised. What I'm doing is just as much for her good as for mine. In this whole world there couldn't be a better match for her than old Tippengray, and she knows it, and wants him."
"If there was a society for the prevention of cruelty to Greek scholars, I don't know but that it might interfere in this case," said Lodloe.
XVIII.
SWEET PEAS.