“Do you need it badly?” asked Turl.
“Need it!” cried Bagley, scorning the imputation. “Not me! The loss of it would never touch me. But no man can ever say he's done me out of that much money, no matter how smart he is. So I'll have that back, if I've got to spend all the rest of my pile to get it. One way or another, I'll manage to produce evidence connecting you with Murray Davenport at the time he disappeared with my cash.”
Turl pondered. Presently he said: “If it were restored to you, Davenport's moral right to it would still be insisted on. The restoration would be merely on grounds of expediency.”
“All right,” said Bagley.
“Of course,” Turl went on, “Davenport no longer needs it; and certainly I don't need it.”
“Oh, don't you, on the level?” inquired Bagley, surprised.
“Certainly not. I can earn a very good income. Fortune smiles on me.”
“I shouldn't mind your holding out a thousand or two of that money when you pay it over,—say two thousand, as a sort of testimonial of my regard,” said Bagley, good-naturedly.
“Thank you very much. You mean to be generous; but I couldn't accept a dollar as a gift, from the man who wouldn't pay Murray Davenport as a right.”
“Would you accept the two thousand, then, as Murray Davenport's right,—you being a kind of an heir of his?”