“The horse alone was worth that,” said the Colonel, with a faint sigh— “not to be replaced. France and Russia have the pick of our stables. However, if it is sold, it is sold—talk no more of it. I hate painful subjects. You did right not to renew the bill—it is opening an account with Ruin; and though I avoid preaching on money matters, or, indeed, any other (preaching is my nephew’s vocation, not mine), yet allow me to extract from you a solemn promise never again to sign bills, nor to draw them. Be to your friend what you please except security for him. Orestes never asked Pylades to help him to borrow at fifty per cent. Promise me—your word of honour as a gentleman! Do you hesitate?”
“My dear Colonel,” said Lionel frankly, “I do hesitate. I might promise not to sign a money-lender’s bill on my own account, though really I think you take rather an exaggerated view of what is, after all, a common occurrence—”
“Do I?” said the Colonel meekly. “I’m sorry to hear it. I detest exaggeration. Go on. You might promise not to ruin yourself—but you object to promise not to help in the ruin of your friend.”
“That is exquisite irony, Colonel,” said Lionel, piqued; “but it does not deal with the difficulty, which is simply this: When a man whom you call friend—whom you walk with, ride with, dine with almost every day, says to you ‘I am in immediate want of a few hundreds—I don’t ask you to lend them to me, perhaps you can’t—but assist me to borrow—trust to my honour that the debt shall not fall on you,—why, then, it seems as if to refuse the favour was to tell the man you call friend that you doubt his honour; and though I have been caught once in that way, I feel that I must be caught very often before I should have the moral courage to say ‘No!’ Don’t ask me, then to promise—be satisfied with my assurance that, in future at least, I will be more cautious, and if the loss fall on me, why, the worst that can happen is to do again what I do now.”
“Nay, you would not perhaps have another horse and cab to sell. In that case, you would do the reverse of what you do now—you would renew the bill—the debt would run on like a snowball—in a year or two you would owe, not hundreds, but thousands. But come in—here we are at my door.”
The Colonel entered his drawing-room. A miracle of exquisite neatness the room was—rather effeminate, perhaps, in its attributes; but that was no sign of the Colonel’s tastes, but of his popularity with the ladies. All those pretty things were their gifts. The tapestry on the chairs their work—the Sevres on the consoles—the clock on the mantel-shelf—the inkstand, paper-cutter, taper-stand on the writing-table—their birthday presents. Even the white woolly Maltese dog that sprang from the rug to welcome him—even the flowers in the jardiniere—even the tasteful cottage-piano, and the very music-stand beside it—and the card-trays, piled high with invitations,—were contributions from the forgiving sex to the unrequiting bachelor.
Surveying his apartment with a complacent air, the Colonel sank into his easy fauteuil, and drawing off his gloves leisurely said—
“No man has more friends than I have—never did I lose one—never did I sign a bill. Your father pursued a different policy—he signed many bills—and lost many friends.” Lionel, much distressed, looked down, and evidently desired to have done with the subject. Not so the Colonel. That shrewd man, though he did not preach, had a way all his own, which was perhaps quite as effective as any sermon by a fashionable layman can be to an impatient youth.
“Yes,” resumed the Colonel, “it is the old story. One always begins by being security to a friend. The discredit of the thing is familiarised to one’s mind by the false show of generous confidence in another. Their what you have done for a friend, a friend should do for you;—a hundred or two would be useful now—you are sure to repay it in three months. To Youth the Future seems safe as the Bank of England, and distant as the peaks of Himalaya. You pledge your honour that in three months you will release your friend. The three months expire. To release the one friend, you catch hold of another—the bill is renewed, premium and interest thrown into the next pay-day—soon the account multiplies, and with it the honour dwindles—your NAME circulates from hand to hand on the back of doubtful paper—your name, which, in all money transactions, should grow higher and higher each year you live, falling down every month like the shares in a swindling speculation. You begin by what you call trusting a friend, that is, aiding him to self-destruction—buying him arsenic to clear his complexion—you end by dragging all near you into your own abyss, as a drowning man would clutch at his own brother. Lionel Haughton, the saddest expression I ever saw in your father’s face was when—when—but you shall hear the story—”
“No, sir; spare me. Since you so insist on it, I will give the promise—it is enough; and my father—”