s
a rule they've dried up."

"So you come to one who isn't a friend?" George asked.

"Now see here, Morton, that's scarcely fair."

"You haven't forgotten that day in my office," George accused him, "when
you made a brutal ass of yourself."

"Said I was sorry. Don't you ever forget anything?"

Dalrymple was angry enough himself now, but his worry apparently forced
him on.

"I wouldn't have come to you at all, only Driggs said--and you said
yourself once, and you can spare it. I know that. See here. Unless
somebody helps me these people will go to Division Headquarters or
Washington. They'll stop my sailing. They'll----"

"Don't cry," George interrupted. "You want money, and you don't give a
hang where it comes from. That's it, isn't it?"

"I have to have money," Dalrymple acknowledged.

"Then you ought to have sense enough to know the only reason I'd give it
to you. Do you think I'd care if they held you in this country for your
silly debts? What you borrow you have to pay back in one way or another.
Don't make any mistake. If I give you money it's to be able to make you
pay as I please. You've always had a knife out for me. I don't mind
putting one in my own hands. If you want money on those terms come to my
office with your accounts Saturday afternoon. We'll see what can be
done."

Dalrymple was quite white. He moistened his lips. As he left he
muttered:

"I can't answer back. I have to have money. You've got me where you
want."

VII

Dalrymple's necessities turned out to be greater than George had
imagined. They measured pretty accurately the extent of his
reformation. George got several notes to run a year in return for
approximately twenty thousand dollars.

"Remember," he said at the close of the transaction, "you pay those back
when and how I say."

"I wouldn't have come to you if I could have helped it," Dalrymple
whined. "But don't forget, Morton, somebody will pull me out at a pinch.
I'm going to work to pay you if I live. I'm through with nonsense. Give
me a chance."

George nodded him out, and sent for his lawyer. In case of his death
Dalrymple's notes would go back to the man. Everything else he had
divided between his mother and the Baillys. He wrote his mother a long
letter, telling her just what to do. Quite honestly he regretted his
inability to get West to say good-bye. The thought of bringing her to
New York or Upton had not occurred to him.

For during these days of farewel