"At least," was the reply, and Ellis sighed as if regretfully, "I can't keep three going at once."
Jim laughed. "You don't regret it, I know well enough. You've got too many other things to think of. I have to do it, to make life interesting."
Such a cub as this, it was plain, deserved no mercy. "You won't succeed in one quarter, at least," Ellis answered.
"Where, then?" demanded Jim.
Ellis took his first sip of wine. "At a certain lady's where we have met."
Jim resorted to pantomime. He reached for the bottle and filled his glass; this he held up to the light, and squinted through it; then with deliberation he drank off the wine, and reached for the fresh bottle. After filling, he looked at Ellis. All this he did with an air of very, very evident amusement, and at the end he chuckled.
"For the reason," continued Ellis, quite unmoved, "that you haven't the cash." He took his second sip, but Jim laughed outright.
Then the youth became grave. "Money," he said emphatically, "is all very well in its place. But though you've made your way by it, sir, you overestimate it. Why, that Mrs. Harmon would take——" Suddenly Jim grew red in the face. "You insult her, sir!"
"Good," remarked Ellis, very coldly. "The waiter is out of the room; recollect yourself when he returns. Recollect also that Mrs. Harmon is a very old friend of mine."