After a little, Rogers asked, hesitatingly:
'ALL of it? - That is - I mean - '
'Certainly, all of it.'
I was going to say more, but stopped - was stopped by a train of thought
which started up in me. Thompson spoke, but my mind was absent, and I
did not catch what he said. But I heard Rogers answer -
'Yes, it seems so to me. It ought to be quite sufficient; for I don't
see that he has done anything.'
Presently the poet said -
'When you come to look at it, it is more than sufficient. Just look at
it - five thousand dollars! Why, he couldn't spend it in a lifetime! And
it would injure him, too; perhaps ruin him - you want to look at that. In
a little while he would throw his last away, shut up his shop, maybe
take to drinking, maltreat his motherless children, drift into other
evil courses, go steadily from bad to worse - '
'Yes, that's it,' interrupted Rogers, fervently, 'I've seen it a hundred
times - yes, more than a hundred. You put money into the hands of a man
like that, if you want to destroy him, that's all; just put money into
his hands, it's all you've got to do; and if it don't pull him down, and
take all the usefulness out of him, and all the self-respect and
everything, then I don't know human nature - ain't that so, Thompson?
And even if we were to give him a THIRD of it; why, in less than six
months - '
'Less than six WEEKS, you'd better say!' said I, warming up and breaking
in.
