“Show him one or two of those new hundreds, Mombley,” he invited Wallingford with almost a snarl.
Wallingford merely smiled in a superior way.
“You know I never carry any but the genuine,” he said in mild reproach. “It wouldn’t do, you know. Anyhow, are we sure that Mr. Pickins wants to invest?”
Mr. Pickins drew a long breath and once more plunged into the character which he had almost doffed.
“Invest? Well, I reckon!” he nasally drawled. “If I can get twenty thousand dollars as good money as that for five, I’d be a blame fool not to take it. And I got the five thousand, too.”
Things were coming back to a normal basis now, and the others cheered up.
“Look here,” Mr. Pickins went on, and, reaching down, he drew off with much tugging one of the high boots, in the top of which had reposed a package of greenbacks: ten crisp, nice-looking five-hundred-dollar bills.
For just a moment Wallingford eyed that money speculatively, then he picked up one of the bills and slid it through his fingers.
“It’s good money, I suppose,” he observed. “You can hardly tell the good from the bad these days, except by offering to spend it. We might break one of these—say for an automobile ride.”
“No, you don’t,” hurriedly interposed Mr. Pickins, losing his nasal drawl for the moment and reaching for the bill, which he put back in the package, snapping a weak rubber band around it. “I reckon I don’t let go of one of these bills till I see something in exchange. I—I ain’t no greenhorn!”