It was necessary then to appeal to the poetry
in the man.
A long time from across his typewriter he studied old Metzeger, tall,
angular, his shoulders lovingly rounded above one of the ledgers, a
green shade pulled well over his eyes, perhaps to conceal the
too-flagrant love-light that shone there for his figures. Napoleon had
won most of his battles in his tent.
Bean arose, moved toward the other and spoke in clear, cool tones.
"Mr. Metzeger, I want to borrow five dollars--"
The old man perceptibly stiffened and bent his head lower.
"--five dollars and eighty-seven cents until Saturday at ten minutes
past twelve."
Metzeger looked up, surveying him keenly from under the green shade.
"_How_ much?'
"Five eighty-seven."
There was a curious relenting in the sharpened old face. The man had
been struck in a vital spot. With his fine-pointed pen he affectionately
wrote the figures on a pad: "$5.87--12:10." They were ideal; they
vanquished him. Slowly he counted out money from various pockets, but
the sum was $5.90.
"Bring me the change," he said.
Bean brought it from the clerk who kept the stamp-box. Metzeger replaced
three pennies in a pocket, and Bean moved off with the sum he had
demanded, feeling almost as once he might have felt after Marengo.
It must be true! He couldn't have done the thing yesterday.
He omitted his visit to the dog that day and loitered for an hour in a
second-hand bookshop he had often passed.
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