Page:What will he do with it.djvu/450

440 I avoid preaching on money-makers, or, indeed, any other, (preaching is my nephew's vocation, not mine), yet allow me to extract from you a solemn promise never again to sign bills, nor to draw them. Be to your friend what you please except secur- ity for him. Orestes never asked Plyades to help him to bor- row at fifty per cent. Promise me—your word of honor as a gentleman! Do you hesitate?"

"My dear Colonel," said Lionel, frankly, " I do hesitate. I might promise not to sign a money-lender's bill on my own ac- count, though really I think you take rather an exaggerated view of what is, after all, a common occurrence—"

"Do I?" said the Colonel, meekly. "I'm sorry to hear it. I detest exaggeration. Go on. You might promise not to ruin yourself—but you object to promise not to help in the ruin of your friend."

"That is exquisite irony, Colonel," said Lionel, piqued; " but it does not deal with the difficulty, which is simply this: When a man whom you call friend—whom you walk with, ride with, dine with almost every day, says to you, ' I am in immediate want of a few hundreds—I don't ask you to lend them to me, perhaps you can't—but assist me to borrow—trust to my honor that the debt shall not fall on you,' why, then, it seems as if to refuse the favor was to tell the man you call friend that you doubt his honor; and though I have been caught once in that way, I feel that I must be caught very often before I should have the moral courage to say ' No! ' Don't ask me, then, to promise —be satisfied with my assurance that in future, at least, I will be more cautious, and if the loss fall on me, why, the worst that can happen is to do again what I do now."

"Nay, you would not perhaps have another horse and cab to sell. In that case, you would do the reverse of what you do now—you would renew the bill—the debt would run on like a snow-ball—in a year or two you would owe, not hundreds, but thousands. But come in—here we are at my door."

The Colonel entered his drawing-room. A miracle of exqui- site neatness the room was—rather effeminate, perhaps, in its attributes; but that was no sign of the Colonel's tastes, but of his popularity with the ladies. All those pretty things were their gifts. The tapestry on the chairs their work—the sevre on the consoles—the clock on the mantle-shelf—the ink-stand, paper- cutler, taper-stand on the writing-table—their birthday presents. Even the white woolly Maltese dog that sprang from the rug to welcome him—even the flowers in the Jardinier—even the taste- ful cottage-piano, and the very music-stand beside it—and the