"No, on my honour--nothing worse. The money's bad enough." And the trouble came out in a quick rush of words--explanatory, contrite, despairing--all in one breath. For the Boy had Irish blood in his veins; and the initial difficulty over, he found it an unspeakable relief to disburden his soul to the man who had "brothered" him ever since he joined the Force. Desmond, perceiving that the overflow, once started, was likely to be exhaustive and complete, took out pipe and tobacco, balanced himself on the arm of a chair, and listened gravely to the Boy's disjointed story. It was a long story, and a commonplace one, if even the most trivial record of human effort and failure can be so styled. It was the story of half the subalterns in our Imperial Army--of small pay, engulfed by heavy expenses, avoidable and unavoidable; the upkeep of much needless uniform; too big a wine bill at Mess; polo ponies, and other luxurious necessities of Indian life, bought on credit; the inevitable appeal to the "_shroff_,"[21] involving interest upon interest; the final desperate attempt to mend matters by high stakes at cards, and fitful, injudicious backing of horses, most often with disastrous results. [21] Native money-lender. "Have you the smallest idea what the total damage amounts to?" asked Desmond, when all was said. "I'm bound to know everything now." Denvil nodded. "Close on fifteen hundred, I think," he answered, truthfully. "Why, in Heaven's name, didn't you tell me all this sooner?" "Oh, I kept hoping to get square somehow--without that. I wanted to stay in your good books; and I saw you were rather down on chaps who are casual about money. But I seem to be made that way, and----" "So are most of us, my dear chap. But it's up to you to make yourself some other way, if you don't want to come a cropper and leave the Service. I hope I am no Pharisee, but I've been reared to believe that living in debt is an aristocratic, and rather mean form of theft. My notion of you doesn't square with that; and I know a good man when I see one. You'll never mend matters, I assure you, by playing the fool over horses and cards. How about your mother?" Denvil looked down at the blank sheet of foreign note-paper before him, and answered nothing. He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. "Can't you see that the fact of your having no father to pull you up sharp puts you on your honour to keep straight in every way, on her account? Does she know anything about all this?" "How _could_ I tell her?" the Boy murmured, without looking up. "She thinks me no end of a fine chap; and--and--I'm hanged if I know how to answer her letters since--things have got so bad----" "When did you write last?" "About six weeks ago." Desmond flung out an oath. "Confound you!" he cried hotly. "What do you think she's imagining by now? All manner of hideous impossibilities. I suppose you never gave _that_ a thought----"