“One thing, and one hard thing!” “Well?” “Within twenty-four hours we have got to have ten thousand dollars!” CHAPTER XVII “Ten thousand dollars is a great deal of money!” said Frank, easily, with a languid shrug of her shoulders. “It _is_ a great deal! But we’re up against a great deal! If we had twice as much, it would be even better. I have a possible twelve hundred now, altogether—just a scrawny, miserable twelve hundred! I got most of it yesterday, through dabbling in this cotton of Curry’s. Tomorrow morning every cent of it goes down to Robinson & Little, and if the market is moderately steady, and he takes a two dollar margin, knowing what I do, it means I double that amount before the day’s trading is over.” “Robinson & Little? Who are they? New friends of yours?” “They are the big Wall Street people. I had to pay two hundred dollars—in I. O. U. form,—for a letter to that firm. I still have a suspicion it was forged, too. I’ve been getting acquainted with them, however, and showing them that I’m all right. When the eleventh hour comes, and when I have to cut in on Curry’s Postal-Union wire down-town, we’ll have to tear around to Robinson & Little’s, flop over with the market, and buy cotton short, on a stop-order. It all depends upon what margin we may have to put up, whether we make forty thousand dollars, or a hundred and forty thousand dollars. Curry, you may be sure, will try to start the thing off as quietly as possible. So a normal market will bring a more normal margin, and give us something worth while to play on!” “Something worth while?” she mused absently. Then she came and stood by Durkin, and studied his face once more. Some sense of his isolation, of his unhappy aloofness from his kind, touched and wrung her feeling. She caught at his arm with a sudden companionable enthusiasm, and joined him in pacing the room. “After all, there _would_ be something big, and wide, and sweeping about this sort of work, wouldn’t there?” “Yes; it’s a blamed sight better than pool-room piking!” he cried. “It’s living; it’s doing things!” “I believe I could plunge in it, and glory in it!” she went on, consolingly. “There’s just one drawback—just one nasty little blot on the face of the fun,” he ventured, catching at the sustaining arm of her enthusiasm. “And that is—?” “We’ve got to get this ten thousand dollars just for a day or two!” “But have you any idea as to how, or where, or when?” “Yes, I have,” he answered, looking at her steadily. There seemed to be some covert challenge in his glance, but she faced him unwaveringly. “Say it out, Jim; I’m not afraid!” “I mean _you_ must get it! You’ve got to borrow it!” He began bravely enough, but he hesitated before the startled scorn on her face. “You mean I’ve—I’ve got to steal it?” He held up a protesting hand. Then he went to the half-open door of her inner room and closed it carefully.