“Don’t you ride any now?”
“Yes, just as much as ever; but you see, Mr. Shaytop, I don’t like to be bothered with these small accounts, and to deal with men who think so much of little things,” I answered, magnificently. “You have threatened to speak to Mr. Bristlebach, which you are quite welcome to do; and you intimate that my note is not worth the paper on which it is written.
“I hope you will excuse me for what I said, but I was a little vexed” pleaded he. “I was mistaken in you. The fact of it is, I lost two or three bills—”
“You haven’t lost anything by me, and I don’t intend you shall,” I interposed.
I finished my “little lunch,” rose from the table, and having paid my bill, left the house. Shaytop followed me. He wanted my trade, now that he had seen the inside of my pocket-book. But I shook him off as soon as I desired to do so, and hastened to the store of Buckleton. Confidentially I stated my plan to him, and he was willing to be my bosom friend. In the course of the interview I opened my porte-monnaie, and contrived that he should see the figures on the bank bills it contained. It was surprising how those figures opened his heart.
When I suggested that I was making a large outlay, he volunteered to trust me to any extent I desired. He was kind enough to go with me to the carpet store, and assist me in the selection of the goods I wanted. I insisted upon paying two hundred dollars on account, which made the carpet people astonishingly good-natured to me; and I was taken aback when they offered to give me credit. Buckleton then went with me to the kitchen furnishing store, and his advice helped me very much as I wandered through the long lists of articles. I made the selection and paid the bill.
When we returned to the furniture store, I warmed toward him, and finally prevailed on him to accept two hundred dollars towards the bill I bought of him. He gave me a receipt. When we footed up the prices of the goods I had selected, I was rather startled to find they amounted to nearly eight hundred dollars.
“I can’t afford that!” I protested, “I must go over it again, and take some cheaper articles.”
“It don’t pay to buy cheap furniture, Glasswood,” replied my friend. “You have been very moderate in your selections.”
He overcame my scruples by declaring that I need not pay for the goods till it suited my own convenience. I left him and went back to the bank to count my funds. I had only four hundred and seventy dollars left. I could not pay off the six hundred of old debts now; so I left the matter open for further consideration.