“Lord! ye needn't be pertickler, doctor; it's safe 'nough,” returned Simon Basset, with a sly roll of facetious eyes towards the company.
The doctor deigned no further reply.
“I'll stan' any man in this company anything he'll put up,” cried Simon Basset, who was getting aroused to a singular energy.
Nobody responded. Squire Eben Merritt, indeed, opened his mouth to speak, then turned it off with a laugh. “I'd make the bet, boy,” he whispered to Jerome, “if it were anybody else that proposed it, but that old—”
Simon Basset stood up; the men looked at him with wonder. His eyes glowed with strange fire. The lawyer eyed him keenly. “I should think from his face that the man was defending himself in the dock,” he whispered to Colonel Lamson.
“I'll tell ye what I'll do, then,” shouted Simon Basset, “if ye won't none of ye take me up. I'll be damned if I believe that any rich man on the face of this earth is capable of givin' away every dollar he's got, for the fear of the Lord or the love of his fellow-men. I'll be damned if I believe, if the Lord Almighty spoke to him from on high, and told him to, he'd do it, an' I'm goin' to prove that I don't believe it. I'll tell ye all what I'll do. Lawyer Means is here, an' he can take it down in black an' white, if he wants to, an' I'll sign it reg'lar an' have it witnessed. If that young man there,” he pointed at Jerome, “ever comes into any property, an' gives away every dollar of it, I'll give away one quarter of all I've got in the world to the poor of this town, an' I'll take my oath on it.
“But there's more than that,” continued Simon Basset. “I'll get a condition before I do it. I call on my fellow-townsman here—I won't say my fellow-Christian, 'cause he wouldn't think that much of a compliment—to do the same thing. If he'll do it, I will; if he won't, I won't.” Simon Basset looked down at Doctor Prescott with malicious triumph. Everybody stared at the two men.
“Why don't ye speak up, doctor—hey?” asked Simon Basset, finally.
“Because I do not consider such an outrageous proposition worthy of consideration, Mr. Basset,” returned the doctor, with a calm aside elevation of his clear profile, and not the slightest quickening of his even voice.
“Then ye don't believe there's a man livin' capable of givin' away his all for the Lord an' His poor any more'n I do, an' I calculate you jedge so from the workin's of your own heart an' knowin' what you'd do in like case, jest like me,” said Simon Basset.