to me. I shall go to Italy in March, and you, my
boy, shall go with me."

"Impossible! Why, I'm all but broke." Merrihew shook his head decidedly.

"I'll take you as a companion. I'm a sick man, Dan. I'm likely to jump
overboard if some one isn't watching me every minute."

"I'd like to go, Jack; Heaven and earth, but I should! But I can't
possibly go to Italy with a letter of credit no more than twenty-five
hundred, and that's all there is in the exchequer at present."

"Between such friends as we are--"

"That racket won't work. I could not take a moment's peace if I did not
feel independent. Supposing I wanted to come home and you didn't, or you
did and I didn't? No, Jack; nothing to it that way." And Merrihew was
right.

"But I'm not going to give it to you!" Hillard protested. He was
determined to break down Merrihew's objections if it took all night. "I
am going to lend it to you."

"And could I ever pay you back if I accepted the loan?" humorously.
"You'll have to invent some other scheme."

"There's Monte Carlo; you might pull down a tidy sum," said the tempter.

"That's the way, you beggar; hit me on the soft side." But Merrihew was
still obdurate. To go to Europe was out of the question.

"Now listen to reason, Dan. If you wait for the opportunity to go to
Europe, you'll wait in vain. You must make the opportunity. One must
have youth to enjoy Italy thoroughly. The desire to go becomes less and
less as one grows older. Besides, it completes every man's education; it
broadens his charity and smooths down the rough edges of his conceit.
I'll put the proposition in a way you can't possibly get round. You've
simply got to go. You will always have that thousand, so don't worry
about that. You have twenty-five hundred on hand, you say. With that you
can see Italy like a prince for three months. I know the tongue and the
country; I know what you would want to see, what to avoid, where to
stop."

"What's the proposition?" Merrihew drained the bottle.

"This: I'll agree to take not a penny more than twenty-five hundred
myself. We'll go on equal terms. Why," confidently, "besides living like
a prince, you'll have four hundred to throw away at roulette. Boy, you
have never seen Italy; therefore you do not know what beauty is. When we
eventually land at Bellaggio, on Lake Como, and I take your lily-white
hand in mine and lead you up to the terrace of Villa Serbelloni, and
order tea, then you will realize tha