“It is only two, according to my calculations.” Walton thought he had tripped him up, and smiled knowingly.
“Fred said he felt that another thousand, at least, was due as interest at the rate you usually get.”
“Oh, I see; he's certainly liberal.” Walton smiled at his joke, and bent his head over his pad to hide it.
“As I say,” the merchant resumed, “I intended to wait till the debt was entirely paid, but things took a sudden turn that I didn't expect. I offered to advance the money to Fred, but he wouldn't take it.”
“Oh, he wouldn't take it!” Walton said, with a hurried regret that Toby was not present to enjoy the feast of stupidity being spread before him. “I see; he didn't want it. That's a little bit like him.” Simon's amusement showed itself now in his voice rather than in the visage which he managed to keep unruffled. “But you say things had sorter taken a twist around?”
“Yes; he was brave enough, and bearing up mighty well till me and him took a trip, as much for pleasure as anything else, to New York, and we passed through this very town, and—”
“So you passed through here?” Walton interrupted, and then to himself he added: “I knew it. I knew Fred was hanging about Atlanta and sending money to that woman. Huh, his fat agent is certainly giving the snap away!”
“Yes, we passed through here one night, and, as our train was delayed below town by a wreck ahead of us, Fred got out and walked around. He was gone till after midnight, and when he came back to the Pullman where I was I noticed that he was powerfully upset, and begun to suspect that maybe this was his old home. He started to tell me about it then, but I stopped him, and it was not till we had been to New York and got back home that he finally told me your name and where you lived. As I said, he has not been the same since then, and, to be honest with you, Mr. Walton, I don't know of anything in the world that will restore his peace of mind, except—”
“Except having me send for him,” Simon suddenly let himself go, “and kill the fatted bull-yearling, and put a dinky-dinky cap on his brow, and give him a key to the vault, and start in, hit or miss, exactly where me and him left off!”
“You are hard on him, Mr. Walton,” Whipple gasped, fairly staggered by the unexpected retort—“much harder, I must say, than I had hoped to find you. He declared that you wasn't the sort that would forgive easily, but, having been a father once myself, I didn't believe you would, after hearing about your boy's life since he left you, refuse to—”