'Jim,' he said 'you have my sympathy. It was an awfully near thing. But I've got something more solid than sympathy. I will take a seat.'
'Don't rag, Charteris,' said Tony. 'It's much too serious.'
'Who's ragging, you rotter? I say I have something more solid than sympathy, and instead of giving me an opening, as a decent individual would, by saying, "What?" you accuse me of ragging. James, my son, if you will postpone your suicide for two minutes, I will a tale unfold. I have an idea.'
'Well?'
'That's more like it. Now you are talking. We will start at the beginning. First, you want a pound. So do I. Secondly, you want it before next Tuesday. Thirdly, you haven't it on you. How, therefore, are you to get it? As the song hath it, you don't know, they don't know, but—now we come to the point—I do know.'
'Yes?' said Jim and Tony together.
'It is a luminous idea. Why shouldn't we publish a special number of The Glow Worm before the end of term?'
Jim was silent at the brilliance of the scheme. Then doubts began to harass him.
'Is there time?'
'Time? Yards of it. This is Saturday. We start tonight, and keep at it all night, if necessary. We ought to manage it easily before tomorrow morning. On Sunday we jellygraph it—it'll have to be a jellygraphed number this time. On Monday and Tuesday we sell it, and there you are.'