"Where would you get it?" asked Wix incredulously. "Well, for a sure thing like this, if you must know," said Gilman, gulping, but speaking with desperately businesslike decision, "I am sure Mr. Smalley would loan it to me. Although he wouldn't want it known," he again added quickly. "If you'd speak to him about it he'd deny it, and might even make me trouble for being so loose-tongued; so, of course, nobody must know." "I see," said Wix slowly. "Well, Cliff, you just pass up this tidy little fortune." "Pass it up!" "Yes, let it slide on by. Look on it with scorn. Wriggle your fingers at it. Let somebody else have that nine thousand dollars clean profit from the investment of three, all in a couple of days. I'm afraid it would give you the short-haired paleness to make so much money so suddenly. Ever hear of that disease? The short-haired paleness comes from wearing horizontal stripes in a cement room." For a moment young Gilman pondered this ambiguous reply in silence, then out of his secret distress he blurted: "But, Wix, I've _got_ to do something that will bring me in some money! I've run behind on my wheat trades. I've--I've _got_ to do something!" Wix, in the darkness, made a little startled movement, the involuntary placing of his finger-tips behind his ear; then he answered quietly: "I told you to keep away from that game. I tried it myself and know all about it." "I know, but I did it just the same," answered Gilman. Wix chuckled. "Of course you did. You're the woolly breed that keeps bucket-shops going. I'd like no better lazy life than just to run a bucket-shop and fill all my buckets with the fleeces of about a dozen of your bleating kind. It would be easy money." The front door of the Gilman house opened a little way, and the voice of a worried woman came out into the night: "Is that you, Cliffy?" "Yes, mother," answered Clifford. "Good night, old man. I want to be sure to see you before I go to the bank in the morning. I want to talk this thing over with you," and young Gilman hurried into the house. Wix looked after him as he went in, and stood staring at the glowing second-story window. Then he suddenly went back up to his own porch and got his hat. Fifteen minutes later he was at the desk of the Grand Hotel. "Mr. Daw," he said to the clerk. "I think Mr. Daw's probably gone to bed by this time, Wix," the clerk protested. "We'll wake him up, then. What's the number of his room? I'll do it myself." The clerk grinned. "If he kicks, you know, Wix, I can't blame you for it. I'll have to stand it myself." "He won't kick. What's his room?" "Number one," and again the clerk grinned. Nobody ever point-blank refused young Wix a favor. There was that in his bigness, and in the very jollity with which he defied life and its pretended gravity, which opened all doors to him. His breadth of chest had much to do with it.