"All leads up to the point, Prescott, dear chap," protested Algy. "See how simple it all really is? I can spare seven hundred dollars as well as I can a cigarette. I'll hand the amount to Overton. He'll hand it to Green—and all the cause of the trouble is removed and everybody happy."
"Just like that!" gasped Lieutenant Greg Holmes ironically, and he appeared to need the support of the mantel at which he clutched.
There was a savage look on Lieutenant Prescott's face as he demanded:
"Ferrers, are you trying to make game of me?"
"Make game of you?" echoed Lieutenant Algy, with a face so blank, so full of wonderment and so lacking in guile. "Why, I——"
He broke off abruptly, going to the top drawer of a dresser.
"Money talks," announced Algy, holding out a long wallet. "There's a few thousand dollars in this leather. Help yourself to whatever will square Overton with the individual Green."
"Put your pocketbook up," replied Prescott almost brusquely. "And accept my apology at the same time, Ferrers, if you'll be so good. You weren't trying to make fun of me; I know it now. This is simply another buttered piece off your thick cake of stupidity."
"I've never been noted for cleverness; even the guv'nor admits that to me, in confidence," confessed Lieutenant Algy. "But why won't the money do the trick?"
"Because—oh, why—tell him, won't you, Holmesy? I'm off to see Captain Cortland."