"I don't think you will, Alf. If I were in funds, you shouldn't have had to come to Staveley for the money. But I can't shut my eyes to what he has said. You must deal a little openly with me; you know I'm your friend. You've lost this money on Christopher Sly?" "Yes." "Why not let the people you've lost it to wait?" "Because I've paid them already. I had to stake the money in advance." "You dealt with commission agents, then?" "Yes." Mr. Sheldrake hesitated before he asked the next question. "It wasn't your own money that you staked?" Alfred did not reply. "I don't want to press you unfairly, Alf," said Mr. Sheldrake, after a few moments' study of Alfred's downcast face, "and I don't want you to say anything you would rather not say. Young fellows often get into scrapes. I suppose you're in one now?" "Yes, I'm regularly cornered," replied Alfred. "I wouldn't care so much for my own sake--but there's Lily. She's fond of me, and it would break her heart to see me in a mess." "Lily's heart sha'n't be broken, and you shall get out of your mess, Alf. I'll stand your friend, as I said I would, and Con Staveley shall let you have the money before you go." Alfred looked up, and grasped Mr. Sheldrake's hand. The revulsion of feeling almost blinded him. "Mind," continued Mr. Sheldrake, "I do this for Lily's sake, so you may thank your stars you've got such a sister." "She is the dearest girl in the world," cried Alfred, his good spirits returning. "So she is, and I should like her to think well of me." "She'll do that, depend upon it. I'll let her know what a friend you've been to me. You _are_ a trump! I'll pay Mr. Staveley after the Goodwood Meeting." That astute person being called in, and Mr. Sheldrake's decision being communicated to him, the next quarter of an hour was spent in the drawing-up and signing of documents. Alfred signed everything unhesitatingly, without reading the papers; he was too overjoyed to attend to such small formalities. He signed a bill at three months for seventy-five pounds, and would have signed it for a hundred and seventy-five, without murmuring at the interest charged. The two hundred per cent. per annum seemed to him fair enough, and when Con Staveley gave him the cheque, and the business was concluded, he gaily asked his friends to come and have a "bottle of fiz," an invitation which they willingly and gladly accepted. Over the bottle of "fiz" they indulged in a great deal of merry conversation, and Alfred forgot his despair and remorse, and once more indulged in visions of shadowy fortunes, and boasted of the grand things he was going to do. "I'll show them a trick or two," he said confidently.