Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/67

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won't know or care; of course, if it was something they were interested in it might be different'—and all that. And then, finally, 'way in the night, when the young fellow was worn down in will, and tired and weak and dazed anyway, Baldwin began to count the money down on the table, among the stinking whisky glasses and cigar butts, thousand-dollar bills, green as that grass there, one—two—three—like that." McCray, with a kind of fascination, watched Holman as with slow gesture of his long hands he turned over, as it were, and laid down one after another those thousand-dollar bills. "And the young man fell," said Holman at last. And then he was silent, his gaze fixed afar on some light across the fields.

"Well," Holman resumed, "Baldwin was right in one way, at any rate; the people, the young fellow's people down home, didn't care. They never do care; they don't take the trouble. They never knew, anyway, and they elected him again and re-elected him. And he got married and things seemed to go along all right with him; you would have said he was to be envied. But, while nothing seemed to change outside, something did change inside the