"Frank," he said at last, "you ought to be ashamed to talk so. You have plenty of money, nothing to do but enjoy yourself, and yet you complain! You ought to have a few months of old Frye. It would reconcile you to your lot."
Frank looked sympathetic. "Is he so bad as that?" he said.
"No worse than any other old skinflint who feels he owns you, body and brains," replied Albert, "but I do not want to talk about him to-night. I've got the blues."
"I am sorry, old man," rejoined Frank in a low tone, "I wish I could help you. Maybe I can in the near future."
Albert was silent, while the comparison of his lot with that of his friend passed slowly in review.
"It seems to me you have everything to be thankful for, Frank," he said at last in a dejected tone,—"a kind father, good home, plenty of friends, a nice yacht, all the money you want, and nothing to do. With me it is different. Would it bore you if I unloaded a little of my history? I feel like it to-night."
"Not a bit," answered Frank, "I would really like to hear it. I didn't know much of your home affairs at college, and since you came to Boston I hated to ask you, for fear you would think me impertinent."
"Well," continued Albert, "when we were at college I was a little too proud to let you know I was the only son of a poor widow who was denying herself every luxury to educate me; but it was a fact. After we separated, I tutored some, read law, and was admitted to the bar. I opened an office in my native town and wasted a year waiting for clients, while I read novels, sketched, and fished, to pass the time. Last June my mother died and left my sister and me an old house that has been in the family over a century, a few acres of meadow lands, and maybe two hundred dollars in debts. Then I wrote to you. I was more than grateful for the chance you obtained for me to work for even such a man as Frye. I am paying those debts as fast as I can, and my sister is helping by teaching in a cross-road schoolhouse and walking four miles each day to do it."
"And I coaxed you to go out and spend money on a couple of ballet girls!" responded Frank regretfully. "Say, old man," reaching out his hand and clasping Albert's, "if I had known all this that evening I would have bit my tongue before I asked you to go with me."
"That is all right," replied Albert; "I should have told you that night what I have told you now, but maybe I was a little ashamed to do so."