"Won't you answer my question? Yes or no?" said the young fellow, very quiet and quite colorless.

"I have answered that."

"Yes, you have answered," said Bojo slowly. "Now, Mr. Drake, I won't press you any further. I know. I can't accept that money. It is not mine."

"Can't accept? What's this nonsense?" said Drake, stopping short.

"I can't make money off the losings of my friends, whom I have ruined to make your deal succeed."

"That's a hard word!"

"And there's another reason," said Bojo, ignoring his flash of anger. "I was not honest with you. The night I came here I was ruined myself."

"I knew that."

"But you didn't know that I had used the fifty thousand dollars pledged to your pool and that if you had been operating as I thought and wiped out, I should have owed you thirty-five thousand dollars—pledged to you—a debt which would mean dishonor to me."

"I didn't know that. No. How did that happen?" said Drake, sitting down and gazing anxiously at him.