“You shall have it—every penny!”
“But you must make the promise and keep it.”
“What is the promise?”
“Never to gamble again as long as you live!” came impressively from Frank’s lips. “Do you give me that promise?”
“Yes;” cried Madison, without hesitation. “And, by Heaven! I’ll keep it!”
Frank grasped his hand.
“Good boy!” he said, in a tone of earnest satisfaction that impressed the yellow-haired youth strangely. “You will have to cut your friend Charley Herrick in order to keep that promise.”
“I shall cut all my friends of that set, Mr. Merriwell—I swear it! I have learned my lesson this night. That poor fellow who wanted to blow his brains out—ah! that turned my blood to water! It showed me the road I was traveling. I felt that I might stand in his place before the night was over!”
“And so you might had you stayed there to gamble. Had you won to-night, you would have come back. Some night you would have lost everything. That would have been the end.”
Madison shuddered.