VERY HARD CASH.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."
CHAPTER XX.

JAMES MAXLEY came out of the Bank that
morning with nine hundred and four pounds
buttoned up tight in the pocket of his leather
breeches, a joyful man; and so to his work; and
home at one o'clock to dinner.

At 2 P.M. he was thoughtful; uneasy at 3;
wretched at 3.30.

He was gardener as well as capitalist: and
Mr. Hardie owed him thirty shillings for work.

Such is human nature in general, and Maxley's
in particular, that the £900 in pocket seemed
small, and the 30s. in jeopardy, large.

"I can't afford to go with the creditors,"
argued Maxley: " dividend on thirty shillings?
why, that will be about thirty pence; the change
for a hard half-crown.

He stuck his spade in the soil and made for
his debtor's house. As he came up the street,
Dodd shot out of the Bank radiant, and was
about to pass him without notice, full of his wife
and children: but Maxley stopped him with a
right cordial welcome, and told him he had given
them all a fright this time.

"What, is it over the town already, that my
ship has been wrecked?" And Dodd looked
annoyed.

"Wrecked? No; but you have been due this
two months, ye know. Wrecked? Why
captain, you haven't ever been wrecked?" And
he looked him all over as if he expected
to see "WRECKED" branded on him by the
elements.

"Ay, James, wrecked on the French coast, and
lost my chronometer, and a tip-top sextant. But
what of that? I saved It. I have just landed It
in the Bank. Good-by: I must sheer off; I long
to be home."

"Stay a bit, captain," said Maxley: " I am
not quite easy in my mind; I saw you come out
of Hardies; I thought in course you had been in
to draa: but you says different. Now what was
it you did leave behind you at that there shop, if
you please: not money?"

"Not money? Only fourteen thousand pounds.
How the man stares! Why, it's not mine, James;
it's my children's: there, good-by;" and he was

actually off this time. But Maxley stretched
his long limbs, and caught him in two strides,
and griped his shoulder without ceremony: "Be
you mad?" said he, sternly.

"No, but I begin to think you are."

"That is to be seen," said Maxley, gravely.
"Before I lets you go, you must tell me whether
you be jesting, or whether you have really been so
simple as to drop fourteenthousand—pounds at
Hardies?" No judge upon the bench, nor
bishop in his stall, could be more impressive than
this gardener was, when he subdued the vast
volume of his voice to a low grave utterance of
this sort.

Dodd began to be uneasy: "Why, good
Heavens, there is nothing wrong with the old
Barkington Bank?"

"Nothing wrong?" roared Maxley: then
whispered: " Holt! I was laad once for slander,
and cost me thirty pounds: nearly killed my
missus it did."

"Man!" cried Dodd, " for my children's sake
tell me if you know anything amiss. After all,
I'm like a stranger here; more than two years
away at a time."

"I'll tell you all I know," whispered Maxley:
"'tis the least I can do. What (roaring) do—
you—think—I've forgotten you saving my poor
boy out o' that scrape, and getting him a good
place in Canada, and—why, he'd have been put
in prison but for you, and that would ha' broken
my heart and his mother's–and—— " The stout
voice began to quaver.

"Oh, bother all that now," said Dodd,
impatiently. " The Bank! you have grounded me on
thorns."

"Well, I'll tell ye: but you must promise faithful
not to go and say I told ye, or you'll get me
laad again: and I likes to laa them, not for they
to laa me."

"I promise, I promise."

"Well then, I got a letter to-day from my
boy, him as you was so good to, and here 'tis
in my breeches-pocket.—Laws! how things
do come round surely: why, lookee here
now, if so be you hadn't been a good friend
to he, he wouldn't be where he is, and if so
be he warn't where he is, he couldn't have writ
me this here, and then where should you and
I be?"

"Belay your jaw and show me this letter,"
cried David, trembling all over.