"He flatly refused," Mrs. Barnett was still thinking blisteringly of Bob Rogeen, "to obey my wishes in the matter. I told him plainly," she bit her lips again, "that neither Uncle nor I would consent to money being furnished women like that."
"I should say not." Reedy agreed with unctuous righteousness in his plump face. "And to think of that scalawag, making a loan right in your face, after you had vetoed it."
"He'll never make another." Mrs. Barnett's lips would have almost bit a thread in two. "Just wait until I get to Uncle Jim!"
"I'll drive you up," said Reedy. He reached to the top of the desk for his hat.
"Of course," remarked Reedy on the way, "your uncle is very generous to want to help these fellows across the line that are broke. But they are riff-raff. He will lose every dollar of it. I know them. Good Lord! haven't I befriended them, and helped them fifty ways? And do they appreciate it? Well, I should say not!"
"The more you do for people the less they appreciate it," said Mrs. Barnett still in a bitter mood.
"Some people," corrected Reedy. "There are a few, a very few, who never forget a favour."
"Yes, that is true," assented the widow, and began to relent in her mind, seeing how kind was Mr. Jenkins.
"I'm very sorry," continued Reedy, frowning, "that your uncle has taken up this fellow. I've been looking up Rogeen's past—and he is no good, absolutely no good. Been a drifter all his life. Never had a hundred dollars of his own.
"By the way," Reedy suddenly remembered a coincidence in regard to that undertaker's receipt, "where was it your husband lost the sale of that mine?"