"You look pretty healthy. Besides, you'll have part of your five hundred dollars left, you know."
"That's so! What a good calculator you are, Albert! Besides, if things came to the worst, there's that five hundred dollars I lent your father twenty-seven years ago. No doubt you'd pay me back, and——"
"I don't know what you refer to," said Squire Marlowe, coldly.
"Surely you haven't forgot the time when your father was so driven for money, when you were a lad of fifteen, and I let him have all I had except about fifty dollars that I kept for a rainy day."
"This is news to me, Uncle Jacob," said the squire, with a chilling frown. "You must excuse me for saying that I think you labor under a delusion."
Uncle Jacob surveyed his neighbor intently, with a gaze which disconcerted him in spite of his assurance.
"Fortunately, I am able to prove what I say," he rejoined, after a slight pause.
He drew from his pocket a wallet which bore the signs of long wear, and, opening it, deliberately drew out a folded sheet of note paper, grown yellow with age and brittle with much handling. Then, adjusting his spectacles, he added: "Here's something I'd like to read to you, Albert. It's written by your father:
My Dear Jacob:
I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for lending me the five hundred dollars I so urgently need. I know it is very nearly, if not quite, all you possess in the world, and that you can ill spare it. It will save me from failure, and sometime I hope to repay it to you. If I cannot, I will ask my son Albert to do so when he is able. I don't want you to lose by your kindness to me.