r. DeVere. "A check would be a receipt; but I
haven't that. In fact, I haven't a particle of evidence to show that I
paid the money. And Dan Merley has my note. He could sue me on it, and
any court would give him a judgment against me, so he could collect."

"But that would be paying him twice!" exclaimed Alice.

"I know it, and that is the injustice of it. It would be out of the
question for me to raise five hundred dollars now. My throat treatment
has been expensive, and though we are making good money at the moving
picture business, I have not enough to pay this debt twice."

"He is a wicked man!" burst out Alice.

"My dear!" Ruth gently reproved.

"I don't care! He is, to make daddy pay twice!"

"Yes, it is hard lines," sighed the veteran actor. "I have begged and
pleaded with Merley, imploring him to try and remember that I paid him,
but he is positive that I did not do so."

"Do you suppose he really thinks so--that he is honest in his belief
that you never paid him?" asked Ruth.

"Well, it is a hard thing to say against a man, when I have no proof,"
replied Mr. DeVere, "but I believe, in his heart, Dan Merley knows I
paid him. I think he is just trying to make me pay him over again to
cheat me."

"Oh, how can he be so cruel?" cried Alice.

"He is a hard man to deal with," went on her father. "A very hard man.
This has been bothering me all day. I simply cannot pay that five
hundred dollars; and yet, if I don't----"

"Can they lock you up, Daddy?" Alice questioned, fearfully.

"Oh, no, dear, not that. But he can make it very unpleasant for me. He
can force me to go to court, and that would take me away from the film
studio. I might even lose my engagement there if I had to spend too much
time over a lawsuit.

"But, worst of all, my reputation will suffer. I have always been
honest, and I have paid every debt I owed, though sometimes it took a
little while to do it. Now if this comes to smirch my character, I don't
know what I shall do."

"Poor Daddy!" said Ruth, softly, as she smoothed his rumpled hair.

"There, girls, don't let me bother you," he said, as gaily as he could.
"Perhaps there may come a way out."

"Why don't you ask the advice of Mr. Pertell?" suggested Ruth.

"I believe I will," agreed her father. "He is a good business man. I
wish I was. If I had been I would have insisted on getting either a
receipt from Merley, or my note back. But I trusted him. I thought he
was a friend of