"Frighten him pretty well to death, if I can," Sidney answered grimly. "I fancy our friend the jeweller may turn out a blessing in disguise. The news of criminal proceedings will be a bit of a soberer. The young ass!" Because it was so easy to enjoy yourself without being involved in criminal proceedings! "But, I say, you know," he went on, "the governor'll have to pay up." "You must persuade him. I don't believe I can, Sidney." "Oh, you can do that right enough. After all, I don't suppose it'll break him exactly. I daresay, though, the young 'un has run into a tidy lot. Still we can square 'em, I expect. Don't look so awfully cut up, Marie." "I was just off my head till you came." She held out both her hands for him to grasp. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sidney!" "That's all right, Marie. And, look here, if I find him, I shan't bring him here. I expect he and the old man get on one another's nerves. There's a room at my place. I'll take him there. You put some things in a bag for him, and I'll take it." "Will you? It would be better they shouldn't meet--with father as he is." "And you may be sure that when I've got him, I won't let him go. And we'll see about the money to-morrow." She was infinitely comforted, immensely grateful. If he had sown wild oats, what wisdom he had gleaned from the crop! A meeting between father and son just now might be the end of all things, finally fatal! She packed the bag and gave it to her trusted emissary. "What should we have done without you!" was her cry again. "Just leave it to me," he told her, his strong thick lips set resolutely. With the knowledge acquired in folly but tamed now to the service of wisdom, morality, and the interests of the Sarradet business, he found young Raymond without much difficulty--and found him just in time. More than money was giving out, more than strict attention to financial ethics was in jeopardy. The little excitable fellow was pretty well at the end of his tether physically also. His nerves were at breaking strain. Pleasure had become a narcotic against thought; if that alone would not serve, drink was called in as an ally. On the verge of a collapse, he was desperately postponing it by the surest way to make it in the end complete. Sidney, robust of body and mind, beheld him with mingled pity and contempt. He himself could have lived the life for years with faculties and powers unimpaired, really not the worse for it, save in his pocket and his morals; only prudential considerations and newly awakened hopes had, on a cool calculation, turned him from it. But Raymond, if he did not land in jail first, would land in hospital speedily. Amidst the jeers and sneers of the hardier denizens of those regions, Sidney carried him to his own flat and put him to bed like a naughty worn-out child.