Dr. Wilson looked at his companion keenly, and there was in his tone some hesitation as he replied. "You might sell--" "Sell my ponies!" broke in Neligage excitedly. "When I do I'll give up playing." "Oh, nonsense! Don't be so infernally stubborn. Harbinger'll buy one, and I'll buy a couple, and the others it doesn't matter about. You've always had twice as many as you need." "So you propose that I shouldn't have any." "You could use them just the same." Jack swore savagely. "Thank you," he returned. "I may be a beggar, but I won't be a beat." Wilson laughed with his oily, chuckling laugh. "I don't see," he observed with characteristic brusqueness, "why it is any worse to take a favor from a friend that offers it than to get it out of a club that can't help itself." Jack's cheeks flushed, and he began an angry reply. Then he restrained himself. "I won't quarrel with you for doing your official duty, Wilson," he said stiffly. "I'll fix things somehow or get out." "Oh, hang it, man," returned the doctor good-naturedly, "you mustn't talk of getting out. I'll lend you what you need." "Thank you, but you know I can't pay you." "That's no matter. Something will turn up, and you may pay me when you get ready." "No; I'm deep enough in the mire as it is. I won't make it worse by borrowing. That's the only virtue that I ever had,--that I didn't sponge on my friends. I'm just as much obliged to you; but I can't do it." They had been sitting in the smoking-room before the fireplace where a smouldering log or two took from the air its spring chill. Jack as he spoke flung the stub of his cigar into the ashes, and rose with an air of considering the conversation definitely ended. Wilson looked up at him, his golden-brown eyes more sober than usual. "Of course it is just as you say, old man," he remarked; "but if you change your mind, you've only to let me know." Jack moved off with a downcast air unusual to him, but by the time he had encountered two or three men who were about the club-house, and had exchanged with them a jest or a remark about the coming game, his face was as sunny as ever. People were now arriving rather rapidly, and soon the stylish trap of Sibley Langdon came bowling up the driveway in fine style, with Mrs. Neligage sitting beside the owner. Jack was on the front piazza when they drove up, and his mother waved her hand to him gayly. "Gad, Jack," one of the men said, "your mother is a wonder. She looks younger than you do this minute." "I don't think she is," Jack returned with a grin; "but you're right. She is a wonderfully young woman to be the mother of a great cub like me."