light
emphasis on the "us"), "we knew that we could rely on you to settle
promptly."

The Demon grinned for the third time, knowing that he had touched a weak
spot; not a difficult thing to do, if you touched the big fellow at all.
A young man of spirit would have told his creditors to go to Jericho.
Beaumont-Greene might have said, "You have skinned me a bit. I don't
whine about that; I mean to pay up; but you'll have to wait till I have
the money. I'm stoney now." Scaife and Lovell must have accepted this as
an ultimatum. But Beaumont-Greene's wretched pride interfered. He had
posed as a sort of Golden Youth. To confess himself pinchbeck seemed an
unspeakable humiliation.

Men have been known to take to drink under the impending sword of
dishonour. Beaumont-Greene swallowed instead large quantities of food at
the Creameries; and then wrote to his father, saying that he would like
to have a cheque for thirty pounds by return of post. He was leaving
Harrow, he pointed out, and he wished to give his friends some handsome
presents. Young Desmond, for instance, the great Minister's son, had
been kind to him (Beaumont-Greene prided himself upon this touch), and
Scaife, too, he was under obligations to Scaife, who would be a power
by-and-by, and so forth.... To confess frankly that he owed thirty
pounds gambled away at cards required more cheek than our stout youth
possessed. His father refused to play bridge on principle, because he
could never remember how many trumps were out.

The father answered by return of post, but enclosed no cheque. He
pointed out to his dear Thomas that giving handsome presents with
another's money was an objectionable habit. Thomas received a large,
possibly too large an allowance. He must exercise self-denial, if he
wished to make presents. His quarterly allowance would be paid as usual
next Christmas, and not a minute before. There would be time then to
reconsider the propriety of giving young Desmond a suitable gift....

Common sense told Beaumont-Greene to show this letter to Scaife and
Lovell. But he saw the Demon's derisive grin, and recoiled from it.

At this moment temptation seized him relentlessly. Beaumont-Greene never
resisted temptation. For fun, so he put it, he would write the sort of
letter which his father ought to have written, and which would have put
him at his ease. It ran thus--

"MY DEAR THOMAS,

"No doubt you will want to give some leaving presents, and a spread o