"Oh, Dick, don't go to-night. Please stay at home, for my sake."
Dick smoothed his mother's grey hair and kissed her on the forehead. Then he said: "Won't to-morrow night do as well, mother? I can't stay to-night. I have an appointment at the club."
"Telegraph to them and put it off. Stay for my sake to-night, Dick. I never asked you before."
The look of anxiety came into his face again.
"Mother, it is impossible, really it is. Please don't ask me again. Anyhow, I know it is father who wants me to stay, not you. I presume he's on the duty tack. I think what he has to say will keep till to- morrow night. If he must work off some of his sentiments on gambling, let him place his efforts where they are needed—let him tackle Jule Hammond, but not during business hours."
"You surely don't mean to say that a respected business man—a banker like Mr. Hammond—gambles?"
"Don't I? Why, Hammond's a plunger from Plungerville, if you know what that means. From nine to three he is the strictest and best business man in the city. If you spoke to him then of the True Blue Athletic Club he wouldn't know what you were talking about. But after three o'clock he'll take any odds you like to offer, from matching pennies to backing an unknown horse."
Mrs. Saunders sighed. It was a wicked world into which her boy had to go to earn his living, evidently.
"And now, mother, I really must be off. I'll stay at home to-morrow night and take my scolding like a man. Good-night."
He kissed her and hurried away before she could say anything more, leaving her sitting there with folded hands to await, with her customary patience and just a trifle of apprehension, the coming of her husband. There was no mistaking the heavy footfall. Mrs. Saunders smiled sadly as she heard it, remembering that Dick had said once that, even if he were safe within the gates of Paradise, the sound of his father's footsteps would make the chills run up his backbone. She had reproved the levity of the remark at the time, but she often thought of it, especially when she knew there was trouble ahead—as there usually was.