"The Luck of the Golden Butterfly, Mrs. L'Estrange," he said, "is more than what the old squaw thought. It began in dollars, but it has brought me—this."
They were sitting in the garden, Agatha and Gilead Beck, while Jack Dunquerque and Phillis were watering flowers, or gathering them, or always doing something which would keep Jack close to the girl.
"If by 'this' you mean friendship, Mr. Beck," said Agatha, "I am very glad of it. Dollars, as you call money, may take to themselves wings and fly away, but friends do not."
It will be observed that Agatha L'Estrange had never seen reason to abandon the old-fashioned rules invented by those philosophers who lived before Rochefoucauld.
"I sometimes think I should like to try," said Gilead Beck. "Poor men have no friends; they have mates on our side of the water, and pals on yours."
"Mates and pals?" cried Phillis, laughing. "Jack, do you know mates and pals?"
"I ought to," said Jack, "because I'm poor enough."
"Friends come to rich folk naturally, like the fruit to the tree, or—or—the flower to the rose," Gilead added poetically.
"Or the mud to the wheel," said Jack.
"Suppose all my dollars were suddenly to vamose—I mean, to vanish away," Gilead Beck went on solemnly; "would the friends vanish away too?"