"What do you mean?"
"Can I have your word that you will not tell Patsie—or any one?"
Bojo reflected a moment, frowning.
"Is that absolutely necessary?"
"That's the condition."
"Very well, I shall tell her nothing more than she knows. Will that satisfy you?"
Drake nodded slowly, his eyes still on the young man as though finally considering the advisability of a confidence.
"That was partly true," he said slowly; "only partly. There's more to it. It's not a question yet of being wiped out, but it may be a question. Tom, I'm not sure but what they've got me. It all depends on the Atlantic Trust. If they dare let it go to the wall—" He grinned, took a long whistle and threw up his arms.
"But surely not all—you don't mean wiped out?" said Bojo, aghast. "You must be worth twenty, twenty-two million."
"I am worth that and more," said Drake quietly. "On paper and not only on paper, under any other system of banking in the world, I would be worth twenty-seven millions of dollars. Every cent of it. Remember that afterward, Tom. You'll never see anything funnier. Twenty-seven millions and to-day I can't borrow five hundred thousand dollars on collateral worth forty times that. You don't understand it. I'll tell you."