The older man's eyes softened. "Maybe it's just how you look at it." The change in his father's manner was quite lost upon Gordon. He only saw his enormous advantage in this one-sided bargain. "Say, Dad, was there ever such a father as I've got?" he cried exuberantly. "Never, never! But you're not going to monopolize all the sportsmanship. I can play the game, too. I don't need one hundred thousand dollars on this game. I don't need twelve months to do it in. I'm not going to cut twelve months out of our lives together. Six is all I need. Six months, and five thousand dollars' stake. That's what I need. Give me that, and I'll be back with one hundred and five thousand dollars in six months' time. I haven't a notion where I'm going or what I'm going to do. All I know is you've put it up to me to make good, and I'm going to. I'll get that money if--if I have to rob a bank." The boy's recklessness was too much for the gravity of the financier. He sat back and laughed. He flung his half-smoked cigar away, and in a moment father and son had joined in a duel of loud-voiced mirth. Presently, however, their laughter died out. The millionaire sprang to his feet. His eyes were shining with delight. "I don't care a darn how you do it, boy," he cried. "As you say, it's up to you. You see, I've got over my Sunday-school days, as you so delicately reminded me. That's by the way. But there's more in this than maybe you get right. You're going to learn that no graft can turn five thousand dollars into one hundred thousand in six months without a mighty fine commercial brain behind it. It's that brain I'm looking for in my son. Now get along and see your mother and sister. You've only got twenty-four hours' grace. Leave these bills to me. You're making a bid for the greatest fortune ever staked in a wager, and things like that don't stand for any delay. Get out, Gordon, boy; get out and--make good." He held one powerful hand out across the desk, and Gordon promptly seized and wrung it. "Good-by, Dad, and--God bless you." CHAPTER II IN CHASTENED MOOD Of course, the whole thing was ridiculous. Gordon knew that. No one could know it better. The more he thought about it the more surely he was certain of it. He told himself that he, personally, had behaved like a first-class madman over the whole affair. How on earth was he to make one hundred thousand dollars in six months? It couldn't be done. That was all. It simply couldn't be done. What power of mischief had driven him to charge his highly respectable father with graft? It was a rotten thing to do anyway. And it served him right that it had come back on him by pointing the way to the present impossible situation. He was perfectly disgusted with himself.