"Oh, yes," replied Tavender. He added, with a gleam
of returning self-command--"That's all I have got."
"Let's see--what was it you paid me?--Three thousand
eight hundred pounds, wasn't it?"
Tavender made a calculation in mental arithmetic.
"Yes, something like that. Just under nineteen
thousand dollars, "he said.
"Well," remarked Thorpe, with slow emphasis, "I won't
allow you to suffer that way by me. I'll buy it back
from you at the same price you paid for it."
Tavender, beginning to tremble, jerked himself upright
in his chair, and stared through his spectacles at his
astounding host. "You say"--he gasped--"you say you'll
buy it back!"
"Certainly," said Thorpe. "That's what I said."
"I--I never heard of such a thing!" the other faltered
with increasing agitation. "No--you can't mean it.
It isn't common sense!"
"It's common decency," replied the big man, in his most
commanding manner. "It's life and death to you--and it
doesn't matter a flea-bite to me. So, since you came
to grief through me, why shouldn't I do the fair thing,
and put you back on your legs again?"
Tavender, staring now at those shrunken legs of his,
breathed heavily. The thing overwhelmed him.
Once or twice he lifted his head and essayed to speak,
but no speech came to his thin lips. He moistened them
eventually with a long deliberate pull at his glass.
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