"Is that so? I declare! I so seldom draw less than that. Well, suppose we let it go at a thousand."
Time for gulping was passed.
"All right," said the younger man, but he could not make the assent as sprightly as he could have wished. In spite of himself the words drawled.
Nevertheless, at his bank he handed in his savings-book and the check, and, thoroughly permeated by the atmosphere in which he was now moving, he had made out the order for eleven hundred dollars.
"I needed a little loose change myself," he explained, as he put a hundred into his own pocket and passed the thousand over to Mr. Wallingford.
Events moved rapidly now. Mr. Wallingford that night sent off one hundred and fifty dollars to his wife.
"Cheer up, little girl," he wrote her. "Blackie came here and reported that this was a grouch town. I've been here three days and dug up a thousand, and there's more in sight. I've been inquiring around this morning. There is a swell little ten-thousand-dollar house out in the rich end of the burg that I'm going to buy to put up a front, and you know how I'll buy it. Also I'm going over to-morrow and pick out an automobile. I need it in my business. You ought to see what long, silky wool the sheep grow here."
The next morning was devoted entirely to pleasure. They visited three automobile firms and took spins in four machines, and at last Mr. Wallingford picked out a five-thousand-dollar car that about suited him.
"I shall try this for two weeks," he told the proprietor of the establishment. "Keep it here in your garage at my call, and, by that time, if I decide to buy it, I shall have my own garage under way. I have my eye on a very nice little place out in Gildendale, and if they don't want too much for it I'll bring on Mrs. Wallingford from Boston."
"With pleasure, Mr. Wallingford," said the proprietor.