“No; but you have as good an allowance as I. You ought to be able to pay your tailor’s bill.”
“’Tisn’t a bill for clothes,” said Mark, sulkily, and he picked up a book, opened it, and threw it impatiently across the room, making his cousin wince a little.
“What then? Surely you haven’t been such a fool as to borrow money of him?”
“Yes, I have been such a fool as to borrow money of him,” cried Mark, savagely. “I couldn’t help being short; he offered it to me, and, of course, I took it. So would you.”
“No, I shouldn’t,” said Richard, quietly. “He did write to offer me money once—when I first came, and I refused it, and haven’t been in his shop since.”
“But then we’re not all such good young men as you are, Dick,” sneered Mark. “I did take it, and the brute has been running up interest and renewing, as he calls it, and gammoning me into ordering fresh clothes. He made this beastly jacket, and all sorts of things that don’t fit; and now, because I’m not ready to pay his swindling bill and the wretched paper, he has been threatening, and ended by writing to old Draycott.”
“Pay him then, and have done with him.”
“Will you help me?”
“Of course, if I can.”
“If you can! Why, you can, if you like.”