"I would very much," the girl replied.
"You know these commercial agency reports are by no means what I should term models of English prose style. They are usually about as dull and dry documents as any I know in the manner of their presentation of facts. Their authors have about as much need for imagination as the gentlemen who compile city directories and telephone books; beside them articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica are yellow journalism. All the same, they deal with facts, and facts can be more tragic than any romantic fiction ever produced. This case I speak of was simply the story of a harness maker who lived in Robbinsville, a small town up in the center of New York State. A little while ago our local agent wrote a policy on this man's stock, and because he had no rating showing his financial responsibility, the underwriter who passes on New York State business sent for a detailed report, which after some delay came to us yesterday."
Again he paused, and there was silence in the little office until he resumed.
"The rating said—and the manner of it showed that the reporter felt the poignancy of his words—that the harness maker was bankrupt. For nearly fifty years he had kept a harness shop in that same little town, and competition by a younger, more aggressive man had taken away a good many of his customers, his money had gone in ordinary living expenses, his assets had shrunk to almost nothing, and his liabilities had increased to fifteen hundred dollars, which to him might just as well have been a million, and now all he could do was to throw himself on the mercy of his creditors. Which he did."
"And what did they do?" said Helen, in a low voice.
"This is what the old man said—the commercial agency reporter gave it just as the old man said it: 'I have sold harness in this town since I was twenty years old. Now you say I am bankrupt. I want to do what is right. I don't want to cheat any man. I don't know where the money has gone. You gentlemen must do what is best. But I hope you can make some arrangement by which I can keep my business. I have had it so many, so many years. It probably won't be for much longer anyhow. But we don't want to go on the town—my wife and I. A man and his wife ought not to go on the town when he's worked honest all his life and is willing to work still.'"
Smith rose abruptly, and turned toward the window. "I've heard of 'Over the Hills to the Poorhouse' and similar things," the underwriter went on, after a moment, not looking at the girl, "but this somehow seemed different. Perhaps it was its unexpectedness, or finding it in such a way. Do you know," he said, "I felt as though I'd like to write a check for fifteen hundred dollars and send it to that old harness maker up in Robbinsville, just to give him one more chance."
He turned at the touch of a light hand on his arm.
"I'd like to go halves with you," said a voice which Helen's Boston acquaintances would hardly have recognized as hers.
"It's a go," said Smith. "I can't afford it; but five or six hundred dollars in actual cash would probably straighten things out pretty well, and if the creditors don't grant the extension to give the old fellow enough to carry him the rest of the way—by Jove, we'll finance the harness business, you and I!"