ogers to give him a brandy and soda.

"Now," said I, "talk sense. How much can you raise?"

He went into figures and showed me that, although he stretched his
credit to the utmost, there were still ten thousand pounds to be
provided.

"It's utter smash and ruin," he groaned. "And all my accursed folly. I
thought I was going to make a fortune. But I'm done for now." Latimer is
usually a pink, prosperous-looking man. Now he was white and flabby,
a piteous spectacle. "You are executor under my will," he continued.
"Heaven knows I've nothing to leave. But you'll see things straight for
me, if anything happens? You will look after Lucy and the kids, won't
you?"

I was on the point of undertaking to do so, in the event of the
continuance of his craving for prussic acid, when I reflected upon my
own approaching bow and farewell to the world where Lucy and the kids
would still be wandering. I am always being brought up against this
final fireproof curtain. Suddenly a thought came which caused me to
exult exceedingly.

"Ten thousand pounds, my dear Latimer," said I, "would save you from
being hammered on the Stock Exchange and from seeking a suicide's grave.
It would also enable you to maintain Lucy and the kids in your luxurious
house at Hampstead, and to take them as usual to Dieppe next summer. Am
I not right?"

He begged me not to make a jest of his miseries. It was like asking
a starving beggar whether a dinner at the Carlton wouldn't set him up
again.

"Would ten thousand set you up?" I persisted.

"Yes. But I might as well try to raise ten million."

"Not so," I cried, slapping him on the shoulder. "I myself will lend you
the money."

He leaped to his feet and stared at me wildly in the face. He could not
have been more electrified if he had seen me suddenly adorned with wings
and shining raiment. I experienced a thrill of eumoiriety more exquisite
than I had dreamed of imagining.

"You?"

"Why not?"

"You don't understand. I can give you no security whatsoever."

"I don't want security and I don't want interest," I exclaimed, feeling
more magnanimous than I had a right to be, seeing that the interest
would be of no use to me on the other side of the Styx. "Pay me back
when and how you like. Come round with me to my bankers and I'll settle
the matter at once."

He put out his hands; I thought he was about to fall at my feet; he
laughed in a silly way and, groping after brandy and soda, poured half
th