All these things, of course, involved expenditures of money as well as time. The bills for such expenditures Rollo might take to the president of the bank, who wrote upon them with his fat hand and a gold pencil, "O.K.—J.M." after which they were paid and charged to a certain account in the bank entitled: "Miscellaneous." This, not unnaturally, got Rollie, in the course of a couple of years, into luxurious habits. After eating a seven-dollar dinner with the financial man of a Chicago firm of bond dealers, it was not the easiest thing in the world to content himself the next day with the fifty-cent luncheon which his own salary permitted. Furthermore, Rollo, because of his standing at the bank and his social gifts, was drawn into clubs, played at golf, or dawdled in launches, yachts, or automobiles with young men of idle mind who were able to toss out money like confetti. It was inevitable that circumstances should arise under which Rollo also had to toss, or look to himself like the contemptible thing called "piker." Consequently, he frequently tossed more than he could afford, and eventually more than he had.
To meet this drain upon resources the debonair youth did not possess, Rollie resorted to undue fattening of his expense accounts, but, when the amounts became too large to be safely concealed by this means from the scrutiny of J.M., he had dangerous recourse to misuse of checks upon a certain trust fund of which he was the custodian. He did this reluctantly, it must be understood, and was always appalled by the increasing size of the deficit he was making. He knew too that some day there must come a reckoning, but against that inevitable day several hopes were cherished.
One was that old J.M., brooding genius of the Amalgamated National, might become appreciative and double Rollie's salary. Yet the heart of J.M. was traditionally so hard that this hope was comparatively feeble. In fact, Rollie would have confessed himself that the lottery ticket which he bought every week, and whereby he stood to win fifteen thousand dollars, was a more solid one. Besides this, hope had other resources. There were, for instance, the "ponies" which part of the year were galloping at Emeryville, only a few miles away, and there were other race tracks throughout the country, and pool rooms conveniently at hand. While Rollie was too timid to lose any great sum at these, nevertheless they proved a constant drain, and the only real asset of his almost daily venturing was the doubtful one of the friendship of "Spider" Welsh, the bookmaker.
Rollie's first test of this friendship was made necessary by the receipt of a letter notifying him that the executors of the estate which included the trust fund he had been looting would call the next day at eleven for a formal examination of the account. Rollie at the moment was more than fifteen hundred dollars short, and getting shorter. That night he went furtively through an alley to the back room of the bookmaker.
"Let me have seventeen hundred, Spider, for three days, and I'll give you my note for two thousand," he whispered nervously.
"What security?" asked the Spider, craft and money-lust swimming in his small, greenish-yellow eye.
"My signature's enough," said Rollie, bluffing weakly.
"Nothin' doin'," quoth the Spider decisively.
Cold sweat broke out on Rollie's brow faster than He could wipe it off.
"I'll make it twenty-five hundred," the young man said hoarsely.