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this jail now, Railroad, an' I want to step out jest as good a man as when I stepped in."

"Good as you stepped in!" echoed the magnate incredulously. "You'll be fifteen or twenty thousan' better off than when you stepped in!"

"That ain't what I mean," explained Jim sombrely. "When I loaned you that money, I didn't mean to beat the county out of a nickel. And I didn't mean for you to railroad me into jail neither. I thought I was lendin' it to the firmest frien' I had in this worl'."

"You wuz, Jim, you wuz," nodded the magnate.

"An' I made you promise before God," went on the shadow in an aggressive voice, "that you'd pay that money back any time I ast for it."

"But, damn it!" ejaculated the fat man, "kain't you see you're in a position to make money!"

"That don't make a damn bit o' diff'runce to me. I tol' the fellers who voted fer me that I'd take ker o' their int'rusts like they was my own. I come into this jail clean, Railroad Jones, an I'm goin' out clean if I git out a-tall. They ain't nobody goin' to say, 'Jim Sandage tricked the county out of its money.' So I want you to do what you promsied you would any time I ast ye—pay back what I loaned ye."

The magnate drew out his handkerchief and wiped his face in the clammy air of the jail.

"Look here, Jim," he argued desperately. "This is the plan I'd figgered out. Gimme two weeks to git up them bonds. It'll only take five or six thousan'. I'll subtrack that from thirty-two thousan', give you credit for the balance, an' pay you ten per cent. int'rust on it all the rest of your life."

"An' me give up politics fer one grab?"

"It's legal."

"An' cause all my frien's to lose confidence in me?"

The magnate plucked Jim's sleeve through the bars. "That's the point. Folks don't lose confidence in you when you beat 'em out of the public money. They admire you