Matrimony is obviously not for such shameful villains as myself. If Gertrude expects me to return on bended marrow bones and sue for forgiveness, I am certain she is mistaken. Matrimony is not for me. That at least is clear. *CHAPTER X* The dancing flamboyancy in his veins has proved too much for my revered, partner, Fred Salmon. With a glimmer hall bravado, half amusement in his eyes, he announced to me this morning that he has "signed on for a piece of the Roumanian loan." I was stupefied. "How much?" I gasped faintly, watching him closely, for I could not believe it. "Only a measly million," he replied with deprecating cockiness. "It was as much as I could do to make them let us come in at all. If it weren’t for your cold feet I would have taken the three millions." And his chuckle irritated me beyond words. He was in earnest. He was not joking. "And where the devil," I spluttered, "will you get the money for even the initial payment?" "Raise it, my boy, raise it," he bent, beetling over me. "If we want to amount to anything we’ve got to take chances. One syndicate participation like that and perhaps another with the newspaper publicity, and we’re made men in the Street. Got to do it. Want to be a piker all your life? I don’t!" "You’re—mad—" I stammered limply. "Stark, raving mad. And how do you propose to raise the money?" "By selling the bonds, fellow!" he announced with aloof superiority. "Have you got the bonds?" "No. They are not even in this country. We give them _ad interim_ certificates until the bonds arrive." "Have you got the certificates?" "No," was the astounding reply. "We’ll sell ’em first, get the money for ’em, turn it over to Sampson & Company, the syndicate managers, and draw our certificates. That’s how it works. Of course if we were a bigger house, better known, it would be easier. But we’ll do it—don’t you worry—we’ll do it!" "You mean," I groped, "we have to sell something we haven’t even in hand and get money for it?" "That’s what it amounts to," he grinned, though less jauntily than before. I felt myself crumbling to dust. "Don’t sit there like that!" he cried, regarding me as one looks down from the side of a great liner upon a drifting derelict. "Get busy! Get on the telephone and sell some Roumanian bonds!" And he chuckled in his absurd triumphant manner that will one day drive me to desperation. "Begin with your friend Visconti," he suggested. "He seems to have taken a shine to you. Talk to him in Dago."