“Confound you!” he cried. “I tell you I haven’t any money! I tell you I can’t pay! I’m broke—dead broke! You know it! You know what happened at Providence. I raked up every dollar I could raise to bet against Umpty-ten, and lost.”
“Oh, yes, I know that,” sneered Dagett. “I let you have part of the money. Didn’t I lose, too? That’s why I want you to pay me. I need it. I’m strapped.”
“Tell that to your grandmother,” sneered Dunc. “You’re not strapped. Why, you’ve been loaning money at twenty per cent a month for the last five months. You’ve bled everybody you could.”
“But I’ve been unfortunate,” whined Mel. “I took your advice on that Brown game, and you see what happened. You agreed to pay me a week ago. I’ve been putting it off to give you time. You said you’d have money to-day.”
“Because I thought I’d get some from home. It hasn’t come. Do you know how I’ve managed to scrub along the past week? Well, I’ll tell you: I’ve borrowed from my sister. Yes, borrowed from my sister, and she gets what little money she has by teaching music. It comes hard enough, and she needs every dollar.”
“I’ve got to have ten,” hissed Mel, wagging his head from side to side. “I won’t wait any longer. Can’t you borrow that of her?”
“Say, I’d like to choke you! No, I can’t; see?”
“Well, then, there’s only one thing for me to do,” said Mel, with a shrug of his shoulders and an upward toss of his hand.
“What’s that?”
“I’ll have to raise money on the securities you let me have. That was according to the agreement. I’ll have to find out what they’ll bring.”