Bean arose, moved toward the other and spoke in clear, cool tones.
"Mr. Metzeger, I want to borrow five dollars—"
The old man perceptibly stiffened and bent his head lower.
"—five dollars and eighty-seven cents until Saturday at ten minutes past twelve."
Metzeger looked up, surveying him keenly from under the green shade.
"How much?'
"Five eighty-seven."
There was a curious relenting in the sharpened old face. The man had been struck in a vital spot. With his fine-pointed pen he affectionately wrote the figures on a pad: "$5.87—12:10." They were ideal; they vanquished him. Slowly he counted out money from various pockets, but the sum was $5.90.
"Bring me the change," he said.
Bean brought it from the clerk who kept the stamp-box. Metzeger replaced three pennies in a pocket, and Bean moved off with the sum he had demanded, feeling almost as once he might have felt after Marengo.