"I'll hand you one hundred thousand dollars. That's your stake. This is the way you'll pay those bills. You'll leave this city in twenty-four hours. You can go where you choose, do what you choose. But you must return here in twelve months' time with exactly double that sum. I make no conditions as to how you make the money. That's right up to you. I shall ask no questions, and blame you for no process you adopt, however much I disapprove. Then, to show you how certain I am you can't do it—why, if you make good, there's a half-share partnership in my organization waiting right here for you."
"A half-share partnership?" Gordon repeated incredulously. "You said—a half-share?"
"That's precisely what I said."
All of a sudden the younger man flung back his head and laughed aloud.
"Why, Dad, I stand to win right along the line—anyway," he exclaimed.
The older man's eyes softened.
"Maybe it's just how you look at it."
The change in his father's manner was quite lost upon Gordon. He only saw his enormous advantage in this one-sided bargain.
"Say, Dad, was there ever such a father as I've got?" he cried exuberantly. "Never, never! But you're not going to monopolize all the sportsmanship. I can play the game, too. I don't need one hundred thousand dollars on this game. I don't need twelve months to do it in. I'm not going to cut twelve months out of our lives together. Six is all I need. Six months, and five thousand dollars' stake. That's what I need. Give me that, and I'll be back with one hundred and five thousand dollars in six months' time. I haven't a notion where I'm going or what I'm going to do. All I know is you've put it up to me to make good, and I'm going to. I'll get that money if—if I have to rob a bank."
The boy's recklessness was too much for the gravity of the financier. He sat back and laughed. He flung his half-smoked cigar away, and in a moment father and son had joined in a duel of loud-voiced mirth.