"He's sleeping?" asked Abe.

"He had some encouragement," said Alvin. "But he'll be fine."

Abe gave him a look but said nothing.

"What about all this extra money?" asked Arthur Stuart.

"I'm not taking it," said Abe. "I'll keep what's rightfully mine and Coz's, but the rest you can just leave there on the planks. Let the thieves come back and find it."

"But it wasn't theirs, neither," said Arthur Stuart.

"That's between them and their maker on Judgment Day," said Abe. "I ain't gettin' involved. I don't want to have any money I can't account for."

"To the Lord?" asked Alvin.

"Or to the magistrate," said Abe. "I gave a receipt for this amount, and it can be proved that it's mine. Just drop the rest of that. Or keep it, if you don't mind being thieves yourselves."

Alvin couldn't believe that the man Whose money he had just saved was calling him a thief. But after he thought about it for a moment, he realized that he couldn't very well pretend that he simply happened to find the money. Nor that it belonged to him by any stretch of the imagination.

"I expect if you rob a robber," said Alvin, "it doesn't make you any less of a robber."

"I expect not," said Abe.

Alvin and Arthur Stuart let the money dribble out of their hands and back down onto the planks. Once again, Alvin made sure that none of it fell through the cracks. Money wouldn't do no good to anybody down in the water.

"You always this honest?" said Alvin.

"About money, yes sir," said Abe.

"But not about everything."

"I have to admit that there's parts of some stories I tell that aren't strictly speaking the absolute God's-own truth."

"Well, no, of course not," said Alvin, "but you can't tell a good story without improving it here and there."

"Well, you can," said Abe. "But then what do you do when you need to tell the same story to the same people? You gotta change it then, so it'll still be entertaining."