uttered protest from Julie, “That’s the only way I'll take it. It’s for Dirk. But I’m going to earn it—and pay it back. I want a” she was being enormously businesslike, and unconsciously enjoying it“a—an I. O. U. A promise to pay you back just as—as soon as I can. That’s business, isn’t it? And I’ll sign it.”
“Sure,” said Aug Hempel, and unscrewed his fountain pen again. “Sure that’s business.” Very serious, he scribbled again, busily, on a piece of paper. A year later, when Selina had learned many things, among them that simple and compound interest on money loaned are not mere problems devised to fill Duffy’s Arithmetic in her school-teaching days, she went to August Hempel between laughter and tears.
“You didn’t say one word about interest, that day. Not a word. What a little fool you must have thought me.”
“Between friends,” protested August Hempel.
But—“No,” Selina insisted. “Interest.”
“I guess I better start me a bank pretty soon if you keep on so businesslike.”
Ten years later he was actually the controlling power in the Yards & Rangers’ Bank. And Selina had that original I. O. U. with its “Paid In Full. Aug Hempel,” carefully tucked away in the carved oak chest together with other keepsakes that she foolishly treasured—ridiculous scraps that no one but she would have understood or valued—a small school slate such as little children use (the one on which she
