w York,--skin you alive if they could. I beg
your pardon, old man,--have a drop?"

Jack waved his hand in denial, his eyes still on his friend: "Not now,
Garry, thank you."

Garry dropped the stopper into the decanter, pushed back the empty
tumbler and began pacing the floor, halting now and then to toe some
pattern in the carpet, talking all the time to himself in broken
sentences, like one thinking aloud. All Jack's heart went out to his
friend as he watched him. He and Ruth were so happy. All their future
was so full of hope and promise, and Garry--brilliant, successful
Garry,--the envy of all his associates, so harassed and so wretched!

"Garry, sit down and listen to me," Jack said at last. "I am your oldest
friend; no one you know thinks any more of you than I do, or will be
more ready to help. Now, what troubles you?"

"I tell you, Jack, I'm not troubled!"--something of the old bravado
rang in his voice,--"except as everybody is troubled when he's trying to
straighten out something that won't straighten. I'm knocked out, that's
all,--can't you see it?"

"Yes, I see it,--and that's not all I see. Is it your work here or in
New York? I want to know, and I'm going to know, and I have a right to
know, and you are not going to bed until you tell me,--nor will I. I
can and will help you, and so will Mr. MacFarlane, and Uncle Peter, and
everybody I ask. What's gone wrong?--Tell me!"

Garry continued to walk the floor. Then he wheeled suddenly and threw
himself into his chair.

"Well, Jack," he answered with an indrawn sigh,--"if you must know, I'm
on the wrong side of the market."

"Stocks?"

"Not exactly. The bottom's fallen out of the Warehouse Company."

Jack's heart gave a rebound. After all, it was only a question of money
and this could be straightened out. He had begun to fear that it might
be something worse; what, he dared not conjecture.

"And you have lost money?" Jack continued in a less eager tone.

"A whole lot of money."

"How much?"

"I don't know, but a lot. It went up three points to-day and so I am
hanging on by my eyelids."

"Well, that's not the first time men have been in that position," Jack
replied in a hopeful tone. "Is there anything more,--something you are
keeping back?"

"Yes,--a good deal more. I'm afraid I'll have to let go. If I do I'm
ruined."

Jack kept silent for a moment. Various ways of raising money to help his
friend passed in review, none of which at the mom