Briggs shrugs his shoulders as though he had nothing to do with it, and suggests that Roland's bills are too big. He then leaves. Roland looks after him, disgusted, runs through a few more bills, throws them on the floor and at this juncture, Tom, Roland's valet, a big husky negro with a child-like, innocent smile, enters the room with letters, goes to Roland and hands him the letters. Roland looks at them and sees they are more bills, puts them down. Tom picks up others from floor and gives them to Roland, much to his disgust. He looks up to Tom and says:
SP: "YOU'RE A FINE 'SECRETARY'! WHAT DO I PAY YOU FOR?"
Tom looks up at him, round-eyed and smiles and says:
SP: "YOU DON'T."
This is a poser for Roland for a moment, he finally regains his composure and says:
SP: "WELL, I AM GOING TO WHEN I GET MY INHERITANCE NEXT APRIL."
Tom nods his head quizzically as he has heard this many times before. Roland then picks up the bills, runs through them again and says:
SP: "THE QUESTION NOW IS—HOW ARE WE GOING TO LIVE UNTIL APRIL?"
He sighs, reaches over to a table which has a little calendar on it, picks up the calendar, sees that it is the 13th of January, and runs through the pages very dubiously. He finally looks up at Tom, shows him how many days they have to live through on the calendar, and says:
SP: "I HAVEN'T A NICKEL AND I CAN'T BORROW ANYTHING NOW. HOW ARE WE GOING TO LIVE UNTIL APRIL?"