“Oh, I would manage that for you! That is the only thing there would be any risk about; but you are a friend of mine.”
“Yes, I know you are a good friend,” said foolish Philip, who, it is needless to say, could hardly have had a worse enemy than the one who offered him such bad advice.
“So I am, but I don’t take any credit for that,” answered wily Congreve. “People are apt to deceive themselves about such things, you know, as a son’s appropriating what really belongs to him; but I know the world better than you, and understand how to look at things.”
“It may be as you say,” said Philip, growing nervous at the idea of robbing his father, “but I don’t think I like the plan.”
“Oh, very well; I only suggested it for your good,” said Congreve, preparing to draw the net around his victim.
“If you have any other way of paying me the twenty-three dollars you owe me, it’s all the same to me.”
“But I thought,” said Philip, in alarm, “that you were in no hurry about it. You said I might win it back.”
“So you may, and probably will; but if you don’t you ought to pay it.”
“I will, sometime.”
“I really should be glad if I could wait till then, but, as it happens, I have pressing need of the money.”