“‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘What is it, sir?’
“‘It’s about something I owe to your father,’ I said.
“She looked me straight in the face.
“‘My father’s executor, Mr. Lewis, would be the one to see,’ she said. ‘I know nothing about business.’
“‘It ain’t business,’ I said, ‘it’s honor. Could I walk along with you a step?’
“‘Why, yes,’ she answered, ‘if you like.’”
The big man moved his loose bulk in the chair.
“I know something about stories,” he said. “I’ve had to make ’em up so a jury would believe ’em, an’ I done my best as I limped along by her.
“‘I ain’t always been rich,’ I says. ‘I was down an’ out in the eighties, an’ I was a-goin’ to do somethin’ that would have ruined me, when by God’s luck I met Harry in Louisville.’ (I’d heard the old women call her father Harry, so I had that much to go on.)
“‘Al,’ he says, ‘what’s the trouble?’