Francis paused. He spoke fast and with an intensity that absorbed him.
Kimberly, leaning comfortably back, sat with one foot resting on his knee. He knocked the ash of his cigar upon the heel of his shoe as he listened--sometimes hearing Francis’s words, sometimes not. He had heard all of them before at one time or another; the plea was not new to him, but he liked the fervor of it.
"Ah! It is not for myself that I beg." Brother Francis’s hands fell resignedly on his knees. "It is for those poor boys, to keep them, Robert, from going to hell--from hell in this world and in the next. To think of it makes me always sorrowful--it makes a beggar of me--a willing beggar."
Kimberly moved his cigar between his lips.
"But where shall I get so much money?" exclaimed Francis, helplessly. "It will take a million dollars to do what we ought to do. You are a great man, Robert; tell me, how shall I find it?"
"I can’t tell you how to find it; I can tell you how to make it."
"Francis, if you will pardon me, I think for a clever man you are in some respects a great fool. I am not joking. What I have often said about your going into the sugar business, I repeat. You would be worth ten thousand dollars a year to me, and I will pay you that much any day."
Francis looked at Kimberly as if he were a madman, but contented himself with moving his head slowly from side to side in protest. "I cannot leave God’s business, Robert. I must work for him and pray to him for the money. Sometime it will come."
"Then tell Uncle John to raise your wages," suggested Kimberly, relapsing into indifference.
"Robert, will you not sometime give me a letter to introduce me to the great banker who comes here, Hamilton?"
"He has so much money; how can he possibly need it all?"
"You forget, Francis, that nobody needs money so much as those that have it."
"Hamilton may have no more money than I have, and you don’t ask me for a million dollars."
"It is not necessary to ask you. You know I need it. If you could give it to me, you would."
"If I gave you a million dollars how should I ever get it back?"
Francis spoke with all seriousness. "God will pay you back."
"Yes, but when? That is a good deal of money to lend to God."
"He will surely pay you, Robert; God pays over there."