§ 296 In Part Settlement
The men who earn their living on the waters and in the marshes of the Great South Bay of Long Island are a race unto themselves. They are a sturdy, independent lot, and, almost without exception, are endowed with a quaint native wit.
One winter’s day a party of baymen sat around a red-hot stove in a little oyster shanty on one of the farther bars. The talk veered this way and that until finally there arose the ancient question:
“What would you do if you had a million dollars?”
One of the company allowed he’d buy himself an ocean-going yacht and tour the world. Another rather thought he’d adopt orphans and educate them. And so forth and so on.
All this time, Old Man Banks, locally celebrated as the most shiftless man in the county, had sat in silence, rolling his quid and staring reflectively into the hot coals.
“Say, Banks,” quoth one of the group, “you been keepin’ pretty quiet; what would you do if somebody was to hand you a million in cash?”
The ancient deftly spat in through the open stove door before he answered:
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know exactly, but I reckon I’d pay it on my debts ez fur ez it went.”