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96 six dashes with three exclamation points at the end.

I wrote back I'd get that seventy-five dollars for him or die.

I scraped money out of every hole and corner I could find. I sold my lavender liberty automobile veil to Juliet Adams for a dollar and a half, and Ruth bought my rhinestone horse-shoe pin, which I paid three-fifty for, for seventy-five cents. I didn't spend a single penny of my own allowance for November and begged Alec for five dollars which I told him, without a quiver, that I'd got to have for the purpose of buying some new stuff for the kitchen. But most of the money had to come from Dr. Maynard. I sewed like mad. Locked in my bedroom with the alarm-clock keeping track of my time I simply devoured holes. I was like a hungry animal. I couldn't get enough of them—and the bigger they were the better they satisfied me. Socks by the dozens; table-clothes gnawed by rats; napkins worn to shreds; blankets to be rebound; sheets to be hemmed; anything that required a needle, I welcomed with rejoicing.

But of course a man doesn't need more than three dozen socks on hand, five dozen perfectly whole towels and ten table-clothes. There is an end to a bachelor's equipment, and even after I had finished mending with gummed paper a whole music-rack full of old sheet-music Dr. Maynard used to sing, I had earned only twenty dollars.

I was very unhappy when Dr. Maynard passed me my last receipted bill. He was looking at me out of the corner of his eye.