"I don't myself; it ain't a healthy appetite—can't be—must be some kind of a fever inside of me—I s'pose—from all this trouble. And now I've come to poverty and want in my old age. Say, son, I believe there's jest one thing you can do to keep me from goin' crazy."
"Name it, Uncle Peter. You bet I'll do it!"
"Well, it ain't much—of course I wouldn't expect you to do all them things you was jest braggin' about back there—about goin' to work the properties and all that—you would do it if you could, I know—but it ain't that. All I ask is, don't play this Wall Street game any more. If we can save out enough by good luck to keep us decently, so your ma won't have to take boarders, why, don't you go and lose that, too. Don't mortgage the One Girl. I may be sort of superstitious, but somehow, I don't believe Wall Street is your game. Course, I don't say you ain't got a game—of some kind—but I got one of them presentiments that it ain't Wall Street." "I don't believe it is, Uncle Peter—I won't touch another share, and I won't go near Shepler again. We'll keep the One Girl."
He called a cab for the old man, and saw him started safely off up-town.
At the hotel Uncle Peter met Billy Brue flourishing an evening paper that flared with exclamatory headlines.
"It's all in the papers, Uncle Peter!"
"Dead broke! Ain't it awful, Billy!"
"Say, Uncle Peter, you said you'd raise hell, and you done it. You done it good, didn't you?"