“Which would take you five months. That won’t suit me. Haven’t you got any money saved up?”
“No; I ought to have, but I have enjoyed myself as I went along, and it has taken all I earned.”
“Humph! Very pleasant for me!”
“And for me, too. It isn’t very satisfactory to pinch and scrape for five months just to get out of debt. If it was for articles I had had—in other words, for value received—it would be different. But it is just for money lost at the gaming table—a gambling debt.”
“Such debts, among men of honor,” said Dick, loftily, “are the most binding. Everywhere they are debts of honor.”
“I don’t see why,” grumbled Mullins.
“Come,” said Ralston, soothingly, “you are out of sorts, and can’t see things in their right light. I’ll lend you fifty dollars more, making the debt two hundred dollars.”
“I don’t see how that will help me.”
“I’ll tell you. You must win the money to pay your debt at the gaming table. Why, two hundred dollars is a trifle. You might win it in one evening.”
“Or lose as much more.”