rowing five thousand
from Marsh when the rage of selling drove him deeper in; then finally,
absolutely confident, he had yielded, without much shock to his
conscience, and drawn each day until on this morning he had drawn on the
last ten thousand as collateral.

And still Pittsburgh & New Orleans receded, heaping up before his mind
fantastic profits.

"When asked, 'Don't you tire,'
He said, 'Di diddledee dire--
I never can get enough work.'"

finished Fred with a grimace. "That's pretty bad--but so's the subject."

"Look here, Fred," said Bojo, thus recalled from the tyranny of figures
which kept swirling before his eyes. "I want to talk to you. I'm worried
about your letting Louise Varney in on Pittsburgh & New Orleans; besides
I suspect you've plunged a darned sight deeper than you ought."

And from the moral superiority of a man of force, he read him a lecture
on the danger to the mere outsider of risking all on one hazard--a
sensible pointed warning which DeLancy accepted contritely, in utter
ignorance of the preacher's own perilous position.

It was well after seven when they stepped out on the icy station amid
the gay crowd of week-enders. Patsie, at the reins, halloed to them from
a rakish cutter, and the next moment they were off over the crackling
snow with long, luminous, purple shadows at their sides, racing past
other sleighs with jingling bells and shrieks of recognition.

"Heavens, Patsie, you're worse than Fred with his car! I say, look
out--you missed that cutter by a foot," said Bojo, who had taken the
seat beside the young Eskimo at an imperious command.

"Pooh, that's nothing!" said that reckless person. "Watch this." With a
sudden swerve she drew past a contending sleigh and gained the head of
the road by a margin so narrow that the occupants of the back seat broke
into many cries.

"Here, let me out-- Murder!-- Police!"

"Don't worry, the snow's lovely and soft!" Patsie shouted back,
delighted. "Turned over myself yesterday--doesn't hurt a bit."

This encouraging information was received with frantic cries and demands
on Bojo to take the reins.

"Don't you dare," said the gay lady indignantly, setting her feet firmly
and flinging all the weight of her shoulders against a sudden break of
the spirited team.

"Pulling pretty hard," said Bojo, watching askance the riotous struggle
that whirled past cottage and evergreen and filled the air with a snowy
bombardment from the scurryin