"Yes," resumed the Colonel, "it is the old story. One always begins by being security to a friend. The discredit of the thing is familiarised to one's mind by the false show of generous confidence in another. Their what you have done for a friend, a friend should do for you;--a hundred or two would be useful now--you are sure to repay it in three months. To Youth the Future seems safe as the Bank of England, and distant as the peaks of Himalaya. You pledge your honour that in three months you will release your friend. The three months expire. To release the one friend, you catch hold of another--the bill is renewed, premium and interest thrown into the next pay-day--soon the account multiplies, and with it the honour dwindles--your NAME circulates from hand to hand on the back of doubtful paper--your name, which, in all money transactions, should grow higher and higher each year you live, falling down every month like the shares in a swindling speculation. You begin by what you call trusting a friend, that is, aiding him to self-destruction--buying him arsenic to clear his complexion--you end by dragging all near you into your own abyss, as a drowning man would clutch at his own brother. Lionel Haughton, the saddest expression I ever saw in your father's face was when--when--but you shall hear the story--" "No, sir; spare me. Since you so insist on it, I will give the promise-- it is enough; and my father--" "Was as honourable as you when he first signed his name to a friend's bill; and, perhaps, promised to do so no more as reluctantly as you do. You had better let me say on; if I stop now, you will forget all about it by this day twelve-month; if I go on, you will never forget. There are other examples besides your father; I am about to name one." Lionel resigned himself to the operation, throwing his handkerchief over his face as if he had taken chloroform. "When I was young," resumed the Colonel, "I chanced to make acquaintance with a man of infinite whim and humour; fascinating as Darrell himself, though in a very different way. We called him Willy--you know the kind of man one calls by his Christian name, cordially abbreviated--that kind of man seems never to be quite grown up; and, therefore, never rises in life. I never knew a man called Willy after the age of thirty, who did not come to a melancholy end! Willy was the natural son of a rich, helter-skelter, cleverish, maddish, stylish, raffish, four-in-hand Baronet, by a celebrated French actress. The title is extinct now, and so, I believe, is that genus of stylish, raffish, four-in-hand Baronet--Sir Julian Losely--" "Losely!" echoed Lionel. "Yes; do you know the name?" "I never heard it till yesterday. I want to tell you what I did hear then--but after your story--go on."