His completion of an elaborate account of his patronage of Adolphus Maroney called forth from Mr. Betts the remark:
"I don't see, colonel, how he can get on at all without you. Once you got from under him, it's a miracle he didn't entirely collapse."
"No, not quite that," the colonel modestly deprecated. "Maroney was no fool--no fool; only speculative and lacking in foresight. When I got him on his feet he was able to go his way alone."
"Well, that was smart of him, wasn't it?" commented Charley Ryan, with a sagacious wag of his head.
There was something in the tone of his remark that disturbed the colonel's complacency. For a moment he eyed Charley with a side glance, then he said:
"I'm always willing to admit that Maroney was no fool."
"Now, how do we know," said Miss Mercer, letting her eyes give a preliminary sweep over the faces about her, "that you're not still doing all the work and making all the money for those San Francisco millionaires? You know, I believe that's just what you're up to, and you're too sly to tell."
She looked at him with an air of bright challenge. The colonel was pleased.
"No, my dear young lady," he answered; "that was in the past, when I was one of them myself."
"Are you sure you are not one of them still?" said Charley Ryan. "Come, now, colonel; make a clean breast of it. Here's the family album; can you swear upon this book that you haven't got a few loose millions lying round in tea-pots and stockings up in your room?"
The colonel flushed. He did not mind alluding to his poverty himself, but he resented having others treat it as a jest.
"I can swear without family albums that the fortune I once had is a thing of the past," he answered, "and I rather fancy that you know all about its magnitude and its loss. Most people do."
This was too much. Mr. Betts, who was afflicted by an irrepressible sense of humor, burst into loud laughter.
"Well, colonel," he said, "now that you remind me, I believe I have heard that there was a hitch about your millions. So there is about mine. Yours are gone, and mine ain't come. Brothers in misfortune! Shake on that!"
He held out a large fist, and the colonel, not quite comprehending, but feeling the derision about him in an inward sense of heated discomfort, put his hand in it. Mr. Betts gave it a vigorous clasp, and holding it aloft, said: