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“How about your prayer to find a tongue?”

“I don’t know. I longed to speak, but never looked into a future crowned by successful prayer.”

“Well, your term of imprisonment here lasts three years.”

“It is a long time.”

“On the contrary, reckoned justly, a very short one.”

“What do you mean by ‘reckoned justly’?”

He took up a bundle of filed papers from the table.

“These are accounts of long standing,” he answered gravely. “It is strange how quickly a high rate of interest accumulates. What you wipe off in three years or less by ready payments, some are leaving till a future date, till it accumulates and doubles, then maybe trebles, and some day swamps them.”

Rosalie’s eyes opened with unfeigned surprise.

“But whom is the money owed to?”

“To me.”

“Have you all those debtors?”

“These are a few—a very few. People find out the softness of my heart, and then they come to me. Women with stingy husbands and extravagant tastes, men with limited brains and boundless ambition. Each and all, with many other pleas and reasons, call upon me and win me over to their way of thinking. I am always won. No simple-hearted fool within the country gives in more easily than I when I can gain security of person.”