"This cheque is in order. Please honour."
Chapter XXX
"Desperate diseases," said Jean Briggerland, "call for desperate remedies."
Mr. Briggerland looked up from his book.
"What was that tale you were telling Lydia this morning," he asked, "about Glover's gambling? He was only here a day, wasn't he?"
"He was here long enough to lose a lot of money," said Jean. "Of course he didn't gamble, so he did not lose. It was just a little seed-sowing on my part—one never knows how useful the right word may be in the right season."
"Did you tell Lydia that he was losing heavily?" he asked quickly.
"Am I a fool? Of course not! I merely said that youth would be served, and if you have the gambling instinct in you, why, it didn't matter what position you held in society or what your responsibilities were, you must indulge your passion."
Mr. Briggerland stroked his chin. There were times when Jean's schemes got very far beyond him, and he hated the mental exercise of catching up. The only thing he knew was that every post from London bore urgent demands for money, and that the future held possibilities which he did not care to contemplate. He was in the unfortunate position of having numerous pensioners to support, men and women who had served him in various ways and whose approval, but what was more important, whose loyalty, depended largely upon the regularity of their payments.