"Nothing! By Jove! I wish I could see it," said poor Van; "everything's something to any one, when there's nothing to pay it with. I'm not like you, you know; I'm awfully poor. I have just a hundred and twenty pounds from my office, and forty my aunt gives me, and ninety I get from home, and, upon my honour, that's all; and I owed just a hundred pounds to some fellows that were growing impertinent. My tailor is sixty-four, and the rest are trifling, but they were the most impertinent, and I was so sure of this unfortunate thing that I told them I--really did--to call next week; and now I suppose it's all up with me, I may as well make a bolt of it. Instead of having any money to pay them, I'm two hundred and forty pounds worse than ever. I don't know what on earth to do. Upon my honour, I haven't an idea."
"I wish we could exchange our accounts," said Richard grimly: "I wish you owed my sixteen thousand. I think you'd sink through the earth. I think you'd call for a pistol, and blow"--(he was going to say, "your brains out," but he would not pay him that compliment)--"blow your head off."
So it was the old case--"_Enter Tilburina, mad, in white satin; enter her maid, mad, in white linen._"
"What's your aunt good for? You _know_ she will pay that; don't let me hear a word more about it."
"And your uncle will pay yours, won't he?" said Van, with an innocent gaze of his azure eyes.
"My uncle has paid some trifles before, but this is too big a thing. He's tired of me and my cursed misfortunes, and he's not likely to apply any of his overgrown wealth in relieving a poor tortured beggar like me. I'm simply ruined."
Van was looking ruefully out of the window, down upon the deserted pavement opposite. At length he said,--
"And why don't you give your luck a chance?"
"Whenever I give it a chance it hits me so devilish hard," replied Richard Arden.
"But I mean at play to retrieve," said Van.
"So do I. So I did, last night, and lost another thousand. It is utterly monstrous."
"By Jove! that is really very extraordinary," exclaimed little Van. "I tried it, too, last night. Tom Franklyn had some fellows to sup with him, and I went in, and they were playing loo; and I lost thirty-seven pounds more!"