“I was watching the way you talk. When your lips move fast they do such charming things.”
“Do you know,” roared Carter, “that we haven’t a penny in the world, that we have nothing in this flat to eat?”
“I still have five hats,” said Dolly.
“We can’t eat hats,” protested Champneys.
“We can sell hats!” returned Dolly. “They cost eighty dollars apiece!”
“When you need money,” explained Carter, “I find it’s just as hard to sell a hat as to eat it.”
“Twenty-seven dollars and fourteen cents,” repeated Dolly. She exclaimed remorsefully: “And you started with three thousand! What did I do with it?”
“We both had the time of our lives with it!” said Carter stoutly. “And that’s all there is to that. Post-mortems,” he pointed out, “are useful only as guides to the future, and as our future will never hold a second three thousand dollars, we needn’t worry about how we spent the first one. No! What we must consider now is how we can grow rich quick, and the quicker and richer, the better. Pawning our clothes, or what’s left of them, is bad economics. There’s no use considering how to live from meal to meal. We must evolve something big, picturesque, that will bring a fortune. You have imagination; I’m supposed to have imagination, we must think of a plan to get money, much money. I do not insist on our plan being dignified, or even outwardly respectable; so long as it keeps you alive, it may be as desperate as—”
“I see!” cried Dolly; “like sending mother Black Hand letters!”
“Blackmail——” began that lady’s son-in-law doubtfully.