"But you brought the money. How about that?"
"Well, I had a few dollars, and I borrowed the rest from the old woman. But that needn't worry you, for I paid her back when I sold my oats. It's all right."
"Needn't worry me! Why, you fail to catch the spirit of my distress. Your act leaves me in debt. Why did you do it, Milford? Why?"
Milford looked down at him, his eyes half closed. "You'd acknowledged yourself a thief. You said you'd stolen a dog."
"Yes, I know," the Professor agreed, glancing about. "I know, but what of that?"
"Well, it made you my brother. And don't you think a man ought to help his brother in distress? Don't let it worry you. Don't think about it. If you can ever pay it back, all right. If you can't, it's still all right, so there you are. Let me go."
"Milford, in the idiom of the day, I am not a dead beat. I do not like the term, and I employ it only out of necessity. Beat is well enough, but dead is lacking in the significance of natural growth. I hope that you give me credit for seriousness. I am not a flippant man; I am innately solemn, knowing that the only progressive force in the human family is earnestness. But sometimes in the hour of my heaviest solemnity I may appear light; and why? In the hope that I may deceive my own heart into a few moments of forgetful levity. And you say that you are going over to look at some calves. Now that gives me an idea. I can fatten two calves very nicely—could keep them all winter and get a very good price for them in the spring. I abhor debt, but do you think you could make arrangements for me to get two, or three? Do you think you could?"
"The man I am to deal with is close and I don't believe he'll give credit."
"Very likely he might object. I didn't know, however, but that you might make some arrangements with him, and let me settle with you afterward. Such things have been done in trade, you know."