"I don't wonder that you were dispirited," returned Luke. "But can nothing be done? Can you not replace the money in time?"
"How can I? I have told you how small my salary is."
"Have you no friend or friends from whom you could borrow the money?"
"I know of none. I have few friends, and such as they are, are, like myself, dependent on small pay. I must tell you, by the way, how we became poor. My mother had a few thousand dollars, which, added to my earnings, would have made us comparatively independent, but in an evil hour she invested them in a California mine, on the strength of the indorsement of a well-known financier of Milwaukee, Mr. Thomas Browning——"
"Who?" asked Luke, in surprise.
"Thomas Browning. Do you know him?"
"I have seen him. He sometimes comes to Chicago, and stops at the Sherman House."
"He recommended the stock so highly—in fact, he was the president of the company that put it on the market—that my poor mother thought it all right, and invested all she had. The stock was two dollars a share. Now it would not fetch two cents. This it was that reduced us to such extreme poverty."
"Do you think Mr. Browning was honest in his recommendation of the mine?" asked Luke, thoughtfully.
"I don't know. He claimed to be the principal loser himself. But it is rather remarkable that he is living like a rich man now. Hundreds lost their money through this mine. As Mr. Browning had himself been in California——"