“I wish you were free!”
“If wishes were horses, we should all be on horseback. How debts grow upon you!” Hamish continued, changing his light tone for a graver one. “Until within the last day or two, when I have thought it necessary to take stock of outstanding claims, I had no idea I owed half so much.”
“What shall you do about it?”
“That is more easily asked than answered. My own funds are forestalled for some time to come. And, the worst is, that, now this suit is known to have terminated against us, people are not so willing to wait as they were before. I have had no end of them after me to-day.”
“How shall you contrive to satisfy them?”
“Satisfy them in some way, I must.”
“But how, I ask, Hamish?”
“Rob some bank or other,” replied Hamish, in his off-hand, joking way.
“Shall you speak to my father?”
“Where’s the use?” returned Hamish. “He cannot help me just now; he is straitened enough himself.”