Connecticut western news., 1899-10-19
NOTHING PER CENT.

Johnson carried on the business of money lender and financial agent was in no way different from those surround ing it, save that the down stairs front window bore the legend, "Loan Office, ' in large black letters on a white ground. A quiet, orderly, middle aged man was MT. Johnson, and people who met him in the street and did not know him would have taken him for any thing rather than man who put out his money to usury.
 Certainly there was nothing of the Shylock about him as he sat one spring morning in his dingy office going over a much thumbed account book. He was a tall, spare, loosely built man, with a pale face and thin, struggling crop of beard and whisker that always looked as if it had grown in patches. Usually when he was not talking to his clients he carried a quill pen in his mouth. There was something in this habit which gave him the appearance of an abstracted poodle carrying stick.
 MT. Johnson was deeply engrossed in the consideration of certain entry in his account book when the door of the loan office opened very suddenly and set the bell ringing with sharp disso- nance. He heard light step in the lit tie lobby which was partitioned off from the rest of the room. For mo- ment he did not answer the summons of the bell. It was never wise to be in too much haste to welcome callers. But presently he rose and opened the door, the quill pen still retaining its horizon tai position in his mouth. He lifted his eyes carelessly from the little swing counter to the person who stood behind 1t. He was not easily surprised, for he had seen many strange things in his time, but what he now saw surprised him into vague, uncomfortable si- lence.
 Behind the little counter stood a young lady-nay, a girl of some Is or 19 years, fashionably dressed, evidently of good position and palpable refine ment. Her pretty, fresh face, revealed itself to MT. Johnson's astonished eyes from beneath the ravishments of a much befowered picture hat and seemed strangely out of keeping with the dingy color of his little lobby.
 "Oh-er-you are MT. William John sonf" she said.
 "Yes," answered Mr. Johnson
 'I-I want to borrow some money, !" she said. looking out of half averted eyes at the money lender.
 Mir Johnson's 8 first impulse was to stretch out his hand for one of the application forms which stood ready in reflection he lifted the swinging shelf and asked this new client to step inside When she had passed into the office, he closed the door and joined her, and from sheer force of habit he restored the quill pen to his mouth. The girl saw the resem blance to the abstracted poodle, and smile rippled over her face MT. Johnson did not observe it. He indicated chair at the side of his desk, and when the girl had taken it resumed his own seat and looked at her.
 "What amount did you wish to bor- row. ma am IF" said MT. Johnson.
 "Wh-ah-well, e20."
 "Now"- said MT. Johnson. ''I sup pose you could furnish good security 2"
 ''I thought that you-it says in your advertisement, you know, that you lend money on borrowers note of hand alone-I think that's how it's put, isn't it-and no inquiries and no sure- ties-isn't that it ?"
 ''To approved borrowers-yes, an swered MT. Johnson.
 "Oh," said the girl "Oh, then you"-
 "We don't lend money without se- curity," said Mir. Johnson. "Of course if we know the party and know that it's all right and safe, why, of course, in that case"-
 ''I see" said the girl "Yes-of course you don't know anything about me. How silly of mel I thought one had just to come and get the money and sign paper or something"
 The girl looked up from her parasol, with which she had been tracing imag- mary patterns on the floor
 Perhaps I'd better tell you all about it, she said. "Of course you won't { tel. anybody. will von p