“To what?” inquired Hector, puzzled.
“Oh, I forgot you had just arrived. Four bits is fifty cents. Well, I was reduced to that, and, instead of saving it for my dinner, I went in there and risked it. If I had been lucky, I might have raised it to ten dollars, as a man next to me did; but I’m out of luck, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Why don’t you go back to your uncle in New York?”
“What! and walk all the way without food?” said Gregory, bitterly.
“Of course you couldn’t go without money. Suppose you had the money, would you go?”
“I should be afraid to try it,” said Gregory, smiling.
“Why? Don’t you think he would receive you back?”
“He might but for one thing,” answered Gregory.
“What is that?”
“I may as well tell you, though I am ashamed to,” said Gregory, reluctantly. “I left New York without his knowledge, and, as I knew he wouldn’t advance me money out of my own property, I took five hundred dollars from his desk.”