“I am worried with work,” he said, laughing slightly. “While others take their rest, I have to be up at my books and letters. Great wealth brings great care with it, Johnny Ludlow, and hard work as well. Good night, my lad.”
Tod was pacing the room with his hands in his pockets. It was a terrible position for him to be in. Owing a hundred pounds—to put it in round numbers—for a debt of honour. No means of his own, not daring to tell his father. I mounted on the iron rail of my little bed opposite the window, and looked at him.
“Tod, what is to be done?”
“For two pins I’d go and enlist in some African regiment,” growled he. “Once over the seas, I should be lost to the world here, and my shame with me.”
“Shame!”
“Well, and it is shame. An ordinary debt that you can’t pay is bad enough; but a debt of honour——”
He stopped, and caught his breath with a sort of sob—as if there were no word strong enough to express the sense of shame.
“It will never do to tell the Pater.”
“Tell him!” he exclaimed sharply. “Johnny, I’d cut off my right hand—I’d fling myself into the Thames, rather than bring such a blow on him.”