“No,” said Chynoweth, rubbing it all off again with the sponge. “It’s of no use. He hasn’t the money.”
“Hasn’t the money?”
“No; it’s hard times with us now, Rumsey, I can tell you, and where it’s all gone I can’t tell.”
“But I’m really in distress,” said the doctor. “There are several bills I must pay. I can’t put them off.”
Chynoweth looked at him, then at the slate, hesitated, thought, wrote “I O U fifty pounds” upon it, and rubbed it out, and ended by laying it down.
“Are you very hard up, Rumsey?” he said.
“I never was so pushed before,” said the doctor, dolefully. “Hang it, Chynoweth, I feel sometimes as if it is of no use to keep struggling on. It was bad enough before that scoundrel Trethick deluded me into buying those shares.”
“I don’t think Trethick is a scoundrel,” said Chynoweth, quietly.
“You don’t?”
“No; I believe he is as honest as the day.”