workin', and them gray-blue eyes twinklin' at you, the word
couldn't be said.

"Look at him, Shorty!" says Pinckney. "Six feet of futile clay; a waster
of time, money, and opportunity."

"The three gifts that a fool tries to save and a wise man spends with a
free hand," says Larry. "Give me a cigarette."

"How much, now, did you lose to that crowd of bridge sharks last night?"
demands Pinckney, passin' over a gold case.

"Not my self-respect, anyway," says Larry. "Was I to pass cowardly with
a hundred aces in hand? And I had the fun of making that Boomer-Day
person quit bidding on eight hearts. How she did glare as she doubled
me!"

"Set you six hundred, I hear," says Pinckney. "At a quarter the point
that's no cheap fun."

"Who asks for cheap fun?" says Larry. "I paid the shot, didn't I?"

"And now?" asks Pinckney.

Larry shrugs his shoulders. "The usual thing," says he; "only it happens
a little earlier in the month. I'm flat broke, of course."

"Then why in the name of all folly will you not borrow a couple of
hundred from me?" demands Pinckney.

"Would I pay it back?" says Larry. "No, I would not. So it would be
begging, or stealing? You see how awkward that makes it, old chap?"

"But, deuce take it! what are you to do for the next three weeks, you
know?" insists Pinckney.

"Disappear," says Larry, wavin' his cigarette jaunty, "and then--

"The haunts that knew him once
No more shall know.
The halls where once he trod
With stately tread--er--
Tum-ti-iddity--
As the dead--

or words, my dear Pinckney, much to that effect. My next remittance
should be here by the third."

"When you'll reappear and do it all over again," says Pinckney.

"In which you're quite wrong," says Larry. "Not that I am bitten by
remorse; but I weary of your game. It's a bit stupid, you know,--your
mad rushing about here and there, plays, dinners, dances, week-ends.
You're mostly a good sort; but you've no poise, no repose. Kittens
chasing your tails! It leaves no chance to dream dreams."

"Listen," says Pinckney, "to that superior being, the lordly Briton,
utter his usual piffle! I suppose you'd like to marry, settle down on a
hundred-acre estate nine miles from nowhere, and do the country
gentleman?"

"It would be the making of me," says Larry, "and I could be reasonably
happy at it."

"Then why not do it?" demands Pinckney.

"On a thousand pounds a year?" says Larry. "Go to!"

"The fact r