“Do you mean by that that it is a gambling debt?”
“No,” answered Gerald indignantly. “My father never gambled in his life.”
“Aha!” thought Standish, “it is well that I have wormed the truth out of this boy. Wentworth actually wants to pay me the pitiful sum of two hundred dollars for evidence that will save him twenty thousand. It won’t go down, Mr. Wentworth! it won’t go down!
“Give me the papers,” he said aloud, “and I will do what I can for you. I feel a sympathy for you, my dear young friend, but I must of course consult the interests of my employer.”
“Meaning Mr. Wentworth?”
“Yes; you will of course conjecture that I am acting as his agent.”
“I thought so,” returned Gerald. “I didn’t think the man was so unscrupulous.”
“Perhaps it would inconvenience, or ruin him to pay so large a sum as twenty thousand dollars,” suggested Standish.
“Not at all. He is worth, I have reason to believe, over three hundred thousand dollars.”