to get rich from the old
man's son and put in all he had saved up to be married on; lost it
and squealed. And Billy--the big chump--claimed he was responsible
for it--that, being the son of his father, he ought to know enough to
hold his tongue on some subjects. He made it good to the fellow. I
happen to know, for it took every cent of his own money and his next
month's salary into the bargain--and that he borrowed from me."

"Wouldn't his father have helped him out?"

Gregory Jessup gave a bitter little laugh. "You don't know the old
man or you wouldn't ask. He is just about as soft-hearted and human
as a Labrador winter. I've known Billy since we were both little
shavers--and, talk about the curse of poverty! It's a saintly
benediction compared to a fortune like that and life with the man who
made it."

"And--himself, Billy--what does he think of money?"

"I'll tell you what he said once. He had dropped in late after a big
dinner where he had been introduced to some one as the fellow who was
going to inherit sixty millions some day. Phew! but he was sore! He
walked miles--in ten-foot laps--about my den, while he cursed his
father's money from Baffin Bay to Cape Horn. 'I tell you, Greg,' he
finished up with, 'I want enough to keep the cramps out of life,
that's all; enough to help the next fellow who's down on his luck;
enough to give the woman I marry a home and not a residence to live
in, and to provide the father of my kiddies with enough leisure for
them to know what real fatherhood means. I bet you I can make enough
myself to cover every one of those necessities; as for the millions,
I'd like to chuck them for quoits off the Battery.'"

For a moment Patsy's eyes danced; but the next, something tumbled out
of her memory and quieted them. "Then why in the name of Saint
Anthony did he choose to marry Marjorie Schuyler?"

"That does seem funny, I know, but that's a totally different side of
Billy. You see, all his life he's been falling in with people who
made up to him just for his money, and his father had a confounded
way of reminding him that he was bound to be plucked unless he kept
his wits sharp and distrusted every one. It made Billy sick, and yet
it had its effect. He's always been mighty shy with girls--reckon his
father brought him up on tales of rich chaps and modern Circes.
Anyway, when he met Marjorie Schuyler it was different--she had too
much money of her own to make his any particular attracti