No wonder the widow quaked within her at the honour of being elected to do it all over again. It was not because she hesitated to attempt it for so noble a man; but for the moment she was desperate for a way to go at it. She had used in the last effort every "womanly" device known to conservative tradition for separating a man from his money. But she hesitated only a moment. A watery heart and a dry eye never won a fat loan. Undoubtedly her womanly intuition—or Providence—would show her a way.
"I'll do my best, Mr. Jenkins"—she lapsed into the formal again—"to get the loan for you. But Uncle is getting right obstinate."
"That's all right, little girl," he patted her hands. "I trust you to do it, you could move the heart of Gibraltar. And as I've promised you all the time, when I close up these deals I'm going to give you personally $25,000 of the profits in appreciation of your assistance. And that is not all"—he squeezed both the widow's hands a moment, then released them as if by terrific resolution—"but more of that later. We must close up this prosaic business first."
The next morning at ten o'clock Jim Crill stamped up the outside stairway, stamped through the open door and threw a check for $25,000 on Reedy's desk.
"That's the last," the old gentleman snapped with finality. "And I want to begin to see some payments mighty quick."
Reedy smiled as the old gentleman stamped back down the stairs, proud of his own ability as a "worker." And he was not without admiration for Mrs. Barnett's ability in that line. It would be interesting to know how she had done it so quickly.
"If the old man knew," Reedy picked up the check and grinned at the crabbed signature, "what this is going for, he'd drop dead with apoplexy at the foot of the stairs."
He reached for the telephone and called the freight agent:
"Are those motor trucks in yet? Good! We'll have them unloaded at once."
There are two ways to make a lot of money perfectly honestly: One is to produce much at a time when the product legitimately has such a high value that it shows a good profit. The other is to plan, invent, or organize so as to help a great many men save a little more, or earn a little more, and share the little with each of the many benefited. And there are two ways to get money wrongfully: One is by criminal dishonesty—taking under some of the multiple forms of theft what does not at all belong to one. The other is by moral dishonesty—forcing or aggravating acute needs, and taking an unfair advantage of them, blackmailing a man by his critical wants.