"Well, well!" the old gentleman interrupted, testily. "I don't know anything about that."
"I'm expecting to pay you," Adams went on, swallowing again, painfully. "I was expecting to do it out of a loan I thought I could get on my glue-works."
The old gentleman lifted his frosted eyebrows. "Oh, out o' the glue-works? You expected to raise money on the glue-works, did you?"
At that, Adams's agitation increased prodigiously. "How'd you think I expected to pay you?" he said. "Did you think I expected to get money on my own old bones?" He slapped himself harshly upon the chest and legs. "Do you think a bank'll lend money on a man's ribs and his broken-down old knee-bones? They won't do it! You got to have some business prospects to show 'em, if you haven't got any property nor securities; and what business prospects have I got now, with that sign of yours up over yonder? Why, you don't need to make an ounce o' glue; your sign's fixed me without your doing another lick! That's all you had to do; just put your sign up! You needn't to———"
"Just let me tell you something, Virgil Adams," the old man interrupted, harshly. "I got just
