Jimmie was across the room at a bound, and, striking his friend's arm down, he sent the weapon clattering to the floor.
"Good God!" he cried. "What were you going to do?"
"End it all," gasped Bertie. He dropped into a chair and gave way to a burst of tears, which he tried hard to repress.
"What does it mean?" exclaimed Jimmie, breathing quick and deep. "Are you mad?"
"It means ruin, old chap," he replied. "That's the plain truth. I wish you had let me alone."
"Come, this won't do, you know," said Jimmie. "You are not yourself this morning, and I don't wonder, after the condition I found you in last night. Things always look black after a spree. You exaggerate, of course, when you talk about ruin. You are all unstrung, Bertie. Tell me your troubles, and I'll do what I can to help you out of them."
Bertie shuddered as his eyes fell on the pistol at his feet.
"It's awfully good of you, old fellow," he answered huskily, "but you can't help me."
"How do you know that? Come, out with your story. Make a clean breast of it!"
Moved by his friend's kind appeal, the wretched young man confessed his troubles, speaking in dull, hopeless tones. It was the old story--a brief career on the road to ruin, from start to finish. A woman was at the bottom of it--when is it otherwise? Bertie had not reformed when he had the chance; Flora, the chorus-girl of the Frivolity, had exercised too strong an influence over him. His income would scarcely have kept her in flowers, and to supply her with jewels and dinners and a hundred other luxuries, as well as to repay money lost at cards, he had plunged deeper into the books of Benjamin and Company, hoping each time that some windfall would stave off disaster. Disregarding the advice of a few sincere friends, he had continued his mad course of dissipation. And now the blow had fallen--sooner than he had reason to expect. A bill for a large amount was due that very day, and Benjamin and Company refused to renew it; they demanded both interest and principal, and would give no easier terms.
"You'd better let me have that," Bertie concluded, desperately, pointing to the pistol.
Jimmie kicked the weapon under the table, put his hands deep into the pockets of his dressing gown, and whistled thoughtfully.