"About as well as one man can know another. We came of the same lot you see; old New York families that had been acquainted for three or four generations. Lord! we were too close for my comfort sometimes. He was one of these men with no reticence. His confidences were embarrassing. He was alone in the world, and he had a horror of his own company, see? Very often I was hard put to it to get away about my own concerns." "But you were much attached to him?" "Frankly, no!" said Don. "He was the sort of man you just take as a matter of course. Perfectly well-meaning, but a bit of a bore. No salt in him. I would never have gone in with him if I'd realized." "The newspaper said he was your benefactor." "Not exactly," said Don dryly. "When I came out of college I was at a loose end. I'm the last of my lot, you know. Not a near relation in the world. It's true Dongan offered me a partnership, but it was not altogether philanthropy. I had twenty-five thousand to put in. He had his seat on 'change and he needed the capital." "You said he swindled you." "It was his first crooked deal I'm sure. Even now I can't understand it. He must have been possessed!" "How did it come out?" "Friday night we had dinner together. Lord! it seems like a year ago instead of five days ... And now the earth is over him!" Don shuddered. "You mustn't think of that," said Pen quickly. "You're right! ... He had something on his mind. Said he wanted to talk to me. So I went up to his rooms afterward. There he blurted out that he was long on Union Central. The stock had broken thirteen points that day. He was seventy-five thousand in the hole. Hadn't a sou, he said. Evidently he'd been bucking the market for some time. Well, that was bad enough, but he actually had the cheek to suggest that I take the debt on my shoulders. I was young, he said, I could live it down, whereas it would ruin him. In the end it came out that he had already entered the transactions in my name in our private ledger, knowing that I never looked in the book. That made me see red. Such treachery! I blew up. I withdrew from the firm on the spot. Told him he could have my twenty-five thousand until he was on his feet, and he could borrow the rest from his wealthy friends." "What did you do next?" asked Pen. "I was so blazing mad I scarcely knew what I was doing. My one idea was to get shut of the whole boiling. Rotten game the Street; I was fed up with it anyhow. This only capped the climax. I longed for something clean like paddling a canoe in open water. My canoe was up at a boat-house on Spuyten Duyvil creek. I flung a few things into a valise and went right up there and got it. I paddled right through the rest of the night; down to Perth Amboy and up the Raritan river. By morning I was cooled off. You see I'd no reason to worry about the firm. Dongan had plenty of wealthy friends. If he'd lived he could have raised the money."