"Will a quarter be enough?" interrupted the other gray man, looking down into the troubled face with keen, kindly, gray eyes, which seemed strangely familiar to the child.
"Now, Campbell!" expostulated the tall, nervous man. "They come here in swarms some days. You wouldn't be so ready with your cash if you had to deal with the number we do."
Without reply, the man called Campbell drew a silver coin from his pocket and extended it toward trembling Peace, but she shook her head, gulping out, "It will take heaps more than that. Old Skinflint has got the mordige on our farm and won't give it up. I want money enough to buy it back, so's we can still go on living there."
"Oh!" shouted the sharp-voiced man, while Mr. Campbell pocketed his silver again. "So you thought you would come here to get the money, did you?"
"Mr. Hardman said you let people borrow money from you," whispered Peace miserably, wishing she had never left her seat in the carriage. "He told me that when I poisoned half our hens, but Mrs. Grinnell said you didn't bother with such little things; and anyway, I have bought eight new ones already, so we don't need hens so much as we do that mordige. Is your name Mr. Swift?"
"No, I am the other fellow—Smart."
"Hm, I thought it would be like that."
"Like what?"
"Why, that your names wouldn't fit. I told Mrs. Grinnell I bet Mr. Smart would be stupider than a stump and Mr. Swift would be slower than slow. Is that bald-headed man Mr. Swift?"
For an instant the two men in the corner stared at her in sheer amazement, and then both burst into a great roar of laughter, which brought the whole office force to their feet. "Say, Swift, come meet this young mortgage raiser," called the nervous partner. "If you ever get conceited, just interview a child."