“A good deal of it can be ours, if you’ve got the pluck to go in with me.”
Horace frowned. “Upon my word, Tenney,” he said, impatiently, “what do you mean?”
“Jest what I said,” was the sententious and collected response.
The younger man laughed with an uneasy assumption of scorn. “Is it a burglary you do me the honor to propose, or only common or garden robbery? Ought we to manage a little murder in the thing, or what do you say to arson? Upon my word, man, I believe that you don’t realize that what you’ve said is an insult!”
“No, I don’t. You’re right there,” said the hardware merchant, in no wise ruffled. “But I do realize that you come pretty near being the dod-blamedest fool in Dearborn County.”
“Much obliged for the qualification, I’m sure,” retorted Horace, who felt the mists of his half-simulated, half-instinctive anger fading away before the steady breath of the other man’s purpose. “But I interrupt you. Pray go on.”
“There ain’t no question of dishonesty about the thing, not the slightest. I ain’t that kind of a man!” Horace permitted himself a shadowy smile, emphasized by a subdued little sniff, which Tenney caught and was pleased to appear to resent, “Thessaly knows me!” he said, with an air of pride. “They ain’t a living man—nor a dead one nuther—can put his finger on me. I’ve lived aboveboard, sir, and owe no man a red cent, and I defy anybody to so much as whisper a word about my character.”
“‘Tenney on Faith Justified by Works,’” commented Horace, softly, smiling as much as he dared, but in a less aggressive manner.
“Works—yes!” said the hardware merchant, “the Minster iron-works, in particular.” He seemed pleased with his little joke, and paused to dwell upon it in his mind for an instant. Then he went on, sitting upright in his chair now, and displaying a new earnestness:
“Dishonesty is wrong, and it is foolish. It gets a man disgraced, and it gets him in jail. But commercial acumen is another thing. A smart man can get money in a good many ways without giving anybody a chance to call him dishonest. I have thought out several plans—some of them strong at one point, others at another, but all pretty middlin’ good—how to feather our own nests out of this thing.”