“Strange it may be,” said Daddy, “but it is even so. We are different, very different, but we understand each other, and there is much in common between us. He understands the things that make up my life, and I understand the things that constitute life for him.”
What common ground there could possibly be between these two I did not understand. Daddy I admired and loved, while for Sir John I had no feelings of any kind. I never felt that I even knew him. He and I lived on different planes and spoke different languages. The few times that I had met him after I had grown up had shown me that. It seems most strange that this man had played with me in my babyhood, danced me on his knee, and made card houses on the floor with me. It was much against the grain for me to go to his house on Sunday morning, and present him with a letter from Daddy; but I had to go, if only to show Daddy that I appreciated his attempt to help me. I felt sure I was going on a hopeless errand.
After my talk with Daddy I went to Sir John’s house, which was not far from the one in which I had been married. I sent up my card and Daddy’s letter, and waited some minutes in a severely chaste and cheerless drawing-room, until Sir John appeared.
“Well, John,” he said, as he entered noiselessly, “I hear you are in trouble.” And he sat down on one of the stiff-backed chairs near the door without approaching me, offering his hand or asking me to be seated.
“Yes, Sir John, I am in deep trouble,” I said, and remained standing.
“Humph,” said the old chap. All his words fell from his lips in cold, sharp, even tones. “Well, boy, tell me about it briefly,” he continued, and his mouth closed like a steel trap.
I tried to tell him my position, and how I had come to be placed as I was. He listened, and his attitude was that of an old, tired judge, who hears for the thousandth time the tale of a man self-accused by his own weak self-exculpations. When I had finished he spoke.
“How much will it take to put you on an even keel once more?” he asked.
“About three thousand five hundred dollars, Sir John,” I replied.
“About?” he said. “About, about?” repeating the objectionable word. “Is that the way you do business? Can you not tell me to a cent how you stand?”