He had stood out resolutely against all contention that the children should be cast upon the world once more. Harsh words were used at times by interested friends in their efforts to bring him to his senses. They urged him to let them find homes or asylums for the rapacious youngsters; they described them as so many Sindbads; they spoke of them as millstones about the neck of a man who could never get his head above water unless he cut loose from them; they argued long and insistently about his mistaken ideas of justice, responsibility, affection. He came back at them always with the patient declaration that he would stand by the bargain made by himself and his wife so long as God saw fit to give him the strength to earn a living for their charges. "Why, confound you, Bingle," said Mr. Force to him one day at the bank, "one would think that you still regard yourself as a millionaire, the way you hang onto those kids. Cut them adrift, old fellow. Or if you won't do that, at least let some of us help you in a pecuniary way. Don't be so infernally proud and self-satisfied. It wouldn't be charity. It would be justice. Now, see here, I've argued this thing with you for three months or more and I'm getting tired of your everlasting serenity. I know you are hard put to find enough money to clothe and feed these kids, besides buying what your wife may need. You are beginning to look shabby and you certainly are thinner and greyer. What you ought to do, Bingle, is to turn those kids over to a Home of some sort and settle down to a normal way of living. Winter is coming on. You will have a devil of a time providing for ten small children and a sick wife on the salary you are getting here. Now, for heaven's sake, old fellow, take my advice. Get rid of 'em. You owe it to your wife, Bingle. She ought--"