for the
loan."

For the moment I could not recollect having lent Sam any money; though I
should be glad to do so at any time if I thought he wanted it. Sam is a
boy I like. He is an undergraduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and
has the makings of a man in him, though he is not good at passing
examinations and has never figured in an honours list. Some day, when
he takes his degree, he is to come into my office and be made into a
lawyer. His father, the Dean, is an old friend of mine.

I looked at the money lying before me, and then doubtfully at Sam.

"If you've forgotten all about it," he said, "it's rather a pity I paid.
But I always was honest. That's one of my misfortunes. If I wasn't----
That's the fine you paid for me."

Then I remembered. Sam got into trouble with the police a few weeks ago.
He and a dozen or so of his fellow-students broke loose and ran riot
through the streets of Dublin. All high-spirited boys do this sort of
thing occasionally, whether they are junior army officers, lawyers'
clerks, or university undergraduates. Trinity College boys, being Irish
and having a large city at their gates, riot more picturesquely than
anyone else. Sam had captured the flag which the Lord Mayor flies
outside his house, had pushed a horse upstairs into the office of a
respectable stockbroker, and had driven a motor-car, borrowed from an
unwilling owner, down a narrow and congested street at twenty-five or
thirty miles an hour. He was captured in the end by eight policemen, and
was very nearly sent to gaol with hard labour. I got him off by paying
a fine of one pound, together with L2 4s. 6d. for the damage done by the
horse to the stockbroker's staircase and office furniture. The motorcar,
fortunately, had neither injured itself nor anyone else.

"I hope," I said, pocketing the money, "that this will be a lesson to
you, Sam."

"It won't," he said. "At least, not in the way you mean. It'll encourage
me to go into another rag the very first time I get the chance. As a
matter of fact, being arrested was the luckiest thing ever happened to
me, though I didn't think so at the time."

"Well," I said, "if you like paying up these large sums it's your own
affair. I should have thought you could have got better value for your
money by spending it on something you wanted."

"Money isn't everything in the world," said Sam. "There is such a thing
as having a good time, a rattling good time, even if you don't make
mone