What did you lose?"

"I say, Bojo," said DeLancy, avoiding his glance, "on your honor
straight this is all right, isn't it?"

"Sure!"

"I ought to take it--there's no reason why--you're not telling me a fake
story?"

"I certainly am not," said Bojo cheerily, taking up his check-book at
the desk. "Come on now."

But DeLancy, unconvinced, still wavered.

"How about Roscy?" he said slowly, his eyes fixed, his mouth parted as
though hanging on the answer.

"The same thing goes with Roscy, naturally," said Bojo, carelessly.

DeLancy drew a long breath and approached.

"How much? Confess up!"

"Twenty-seven thousand eight hundred."

Bojo restrained a start of amazement.

"Say twenty-eight flat," he said carefully. "Does that include Louise
Varney's account?"

"Yes, everything," said DeLancy slowly. He stood at the desk, staring,
while Bojo wrote a check, watching the traveling pen as though still
incredulous.

"There you are, old rooster, and good luck," said Bojo.

"Here, I say, you've made it out for thirty-eight thousand, said
DeLancy, taking the check.

"Ten thousand is profits, sure."

"Here, I say, that's not right. I couldn't take that--no, never, Bojo!"

"Shut up and be off with you!" said Bojo. "You don't think for a moment
I'd use my friends and not see they got a share of the winnings, do
you?"

"It doesn't seem right," said DeLancy again. He gazed at the check, a
prey to conflicting desires.

"Rats!"

"I don't feel as though I ought to."

Bojo, watching his struggle with his conscience a moment, perceived the
inherent weakness at the bottom of his nature, suddenly feeling a sense
of distance intervening in the old friendship, sadly disillusioned. When
he spoke, it was abruptly, as a superior:

"Shut up, Fred--you're going to take it, and that's all!

"How can I thank you?

"Don't."

He turned on his heel and went back to his room to hide the flash of
scorn that came to his eyes. "Great Heavens," he thought, "is that the
way men behave under great tests?"

But all at once he added, "And myself?"

For at the bottom there was an uneasy stirring feeling, awakened by the
sudden incredulous laugh of his friends that had greeted his assertion
of Drake's innocence, which was bringing him to a realization that he
was to face a decision more profoundly significant to his own
self-esteem than any he had yet confronted.

"Thank heaven for one thing--nothing happened to Fred! That's set