Jervis ceased to lounge, and now assumed a more uncompromising attitude.
“Explain,” he said laconically.
“Yes; I’ve been going it, my boy,” admitted Waring, with a reckless laugh. “Old faces, old places, were too much for me, and I dropped a pot of money. There was a fellow from New Orleans, a long-headed chap, a born gambler, and a wild-looking Hungarian count; they carried too many guns for me. One night we had three thousand pounds on the turn of a card. Ah, that is living! There is excitement, if you like! Better twenty hours of Simla than a cycle of Shirani.”
“Nevertheless you have returned to Shirani?”
“Yes, only because I am cleared out,” was the absolutely unabashed reply.
“I’m sorry to hear it, Clarence; but it is not in my power to help you beyond the five hundred pounds that will pay our expenses here. The table was papered with bills when I came back.”
“Oh, those!” with a gesture of scorn, “rubbishy little shoeing accounts, stable accounts, and rent. I don’t mind them, it’s others. I’m really in an awful hat this time and no mistake, and you must assist me.”
“I cannot.”
“I tell you again that you must!” cried Waring, throwing himself back in his chair, with an energy that made that venerable piece of furniture creak most piteously.
“There is no ‘must’ in the matter,” retorted the other steadily, “and if I were in the humour for joking—which I am not—the comic side of the situation would make me laugh. You were sent out by Uncle Dan as my mentor, to keep me straight, to give me the benefit of your experience and to show me round. Wasn’t that the arrangement? But, by Jove,” suddenly springing up and beginning to pace the room, “I have been lugging you out of scrapes ever since we landed in the country!”