“We’ve come down to help you do it,” said the Squire.
“To help you with money—not talk,” supplemented Crupp.
Bunley looked at both men quickly, from under the extreme inner edge of his upper eyelid.
“We propose, between us, to show you that we’re in dead earnest to help you keep the pledge,” continued the Squire. “We’re going to give you, week after week, whatever you need to live on for the next three months, so you won’t have any excuse for drinking to drown trouble, and so you’ll have a chance to find something to do.”
Old Bunley sprang to his feet. “Gentlemen,” said he, “you’re—you’re gentlemen. It’s the first time in my life that anybody ever cared that much for me, though. You shan’t lose anything by it, I promise you that; I’ll pay you back again the first chance I get to make anything.”
“We don’t want it back,” said Crupp. “We won’t take it back. We want to give it to you, out and out——”
“To show you that it’s you that we’re interested in, not ourselves,” interrupted the Squire.
Then Old Virginia came to the surface again; Bunley seemed to grow an inch or two, and to swell several more as he replied,
“I’m not a pauper, gentlemen.”