Lafe gave a hollow laugh. "Yes," said he, "Bob owes me three hundred. Ha-ha! That's a fine asset—what Bob owes—ain't it?"
"So you think he's going to rob you? Say it. Say it right out. What did you lend it to him for, then?" she exclaimed.
"Because you done worried me into it," he retorted, but perceiving that he had offended her, he began to weaken, and ended by apologizing. Although he scoffed at the prospect of his brother-in-law ever repaying the loan, it is my belief that Johnson had full confidence in Bob and would have resented with bodily injury any imputation from an outsider.
"If a man can't roast his friends, who can?" said he once, when I remonstrated with him concerning a criticism of Ferrier. "My friends knock me, I reckon. If they don't, then they can't think such a heap of me. No, sir. Bob's behaved like a no-account. Why, man alive, I had to let him have forty dollars more yesterday. What do you think of that—hey?"
Every one of his acquaintance had remarked the transformation in Johnson and all of us were at a loss. The change was revolutionary. It had never been my fortune to meet with an individual so reckless of the morrow as Lafe had been before marriage. Not only had he gambled daily with his life, but had held to it that money was to spend, and the prospect of poverty never appeared to enter into his calculations. Indeed, he had scorned those who showed reluctance to toss their hard-won earnings to the winds. Himself had always been penniless or in debt, but he had gone his way cheerily, indulging no worry over his plight.
Then he married, and now he talked like this: "I swan, Dan, when I think of what I married Hetty on, it sure makes me shake like a leaf. It's a wonder we didn't starve. A man's pluckier or he don't think of these things when he's younger—don't you reckon? I'd never dare do it over again now."
"Pluckier? No. Simply irresponsible—that's all. A lot of 'em hope for a miracle—these young people," said I.
"And damn my eyes if they don't usually get it," Lafe said. "It's most amazing how things will turn up to help people who can't help themselves—just when you think you're done for, too."
"Then why are you worrying so now?"
"Am I worrying?" he asked, looking sharply at me.