again.... But not by jailing him."

"Um!... Three thousand's a lot of money."

"Mr. Baines, I see men and other kinds of men from behind my cigar
counter--and the kind of a man Ovid Nixon _could_ be is worth more than
that."

"Mebby so.... Mebby so. But if I was investin' in Ovid, I'd want some
sort of a guarantee with him. Would you be willin' to furnish the
guarantee? And see it was kept good?"

"If you mean what I think you do--yes," she said, steadily. "I'd marry
Ovid to-morrow."

"Him bein' a thief?"

"Girls that sell cigars aren't so select," she said, a trifle bitterly.

"Pansy," said Scattergood, and he patted her back with a heavy hand that
was, nevertheless, gentle, "if 'twan't for Mandy, that I've up and
married already, I calc'late I'd try to cut Ovid out.... But then I've
kinder observed that every woman you meet up with, if she's bein'
crowded by somethin' hard and mean, strikes you as bein' better 'n any
other woman you ever see. I call to mind a number.... Ovid some attached
to you, is he?"

"He's never made love to me, if that's what you mean."

"Think you could land him--for his good and yourn?"