lliant beggary
in which he lived, the utter inability he had to raise even the sum that
the boy now needed; a sum so trifling, in his set, and with his habits,
that he had betted it over and over again in a clubroom, on a single
game of whist. It cut him with a bitter, impatient pain; he was as
generous as the winds, and there is no trial keener to such a temper
than the poverty that paralyzes its power to give.

"It is no use to give you false hopes, young one," he said gently. "I
can do nothing! You ought to know me by this time; and if you do, you
know too that if the money was mine it would be yours at a word--if you
don't, no matter! Frankly, Berk, I am all down-hill; my bills may be
called in any moment; when they are I must send in my papers to sell,
and cut the country, if my duns don't catch me before, which
they probably will; in which event I shall be to all intents and
purposes--dead. This is not lively conversation, but you will do me the
justice to say that it was not I who introduced it. Only--one word for
all, my boy; understand this: if I could help you I would, cost what it
might, but as matters stand--I cannot."

And with that Cecil puffed a great cloud of smoke to envelope him; the
subject was painful, the denial wounded him by whom it had to be given
full as much as it could wound him whom it refused. Berkeley heard it
in silence; his head still hung down, his color changing, his hands
nervously playing with the bouquet-bottles, shutting and opening their
gold tops.

"No--yes--I know," he said hurriedly; "I have no right to expect it, and
have been behaving like a cur, and--and--all that, I know. But--there is
one way you could save me, Bertie, if it isn't too much for a fellow to
ask."

"I can't say I see the way, little one," said Cecil, with a sigh. "What
is it?"

"Why--look here. You see I'm not of age; my signature is of no use; they
won't take it; else I could get money in no time on what must come to
me when Royal dies; though 'tisn't enough to make the Jews 'melt' at a
risk. Now--now--look here. I can't see that there could be any harm in
it. You are such chums with Lord Rockingham, and he's as rich as all the
Jews put together. What could there be in it if you just asked him to
lend you a monkey for me? He'd do it in a minute, because he'd give
his head away to you--they all say so--and he'll never miss it. Now,
Bertie--will you?"

In his boyish incoherence and its disjointed ineleg