Good-by."
It was what he had expected. He would, perhaps, have stood a
better chance if he had read him Peter's encouraging letter of the
director's opinion of his Cumberland property, and he might also
have brought him up standing (and gone away with the check in his
pocket) if he had told him that the money was to save his own
wife's daughter and grandchild from disgrace--but that secret was
not his. Only as a last, desperate resource would he lay that fact
bare to a man like Arthur Breen, and perhaps not even then. John
Breen's word was, or ought to be, sacred enough on which to borrow
ten thousand dollars or any other sum. That meant a mortgage on
his life until every cent was paid.
Do not smile, dear reader. He is only learning his first lesson in
modern finance. All young men "raised" as Jack had been--and the
Scribe is one of them--would have been of the same mind at his
age. In a great city, when your tea-kettle starts to leaking, you
never borrow a whole one from your neighbor; you send to the shop
at the corner and buy another.
Pages:
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527