That youth, aching at heart, bruised of spirit, unaware of the figure he made, was too far gone to be further puzzled by the weary, mocking smile that flitted across Humphrey's face.
'Hump!' he cried out: 'What'll we do!'
'Do? Sleep over it. Raise some more money?'
'But how?'
Humphrey waved a hand at the machinery. 'All this. And my library upstairs. They've stood me more'n four thousand, altogether. Ought to fetch something.'
'But—but—ten thousand!' Henry whispered the amount with awe as well as misery.
'Oh, that! Your trouble! Why, you'll sleep over that, too, and to-morrow I suppose you'll talk to Harry Davis's father.' The senior Davis, Arthur P., was a Simpson Street lawyer. 'They'll sting you. But they don't expect any ten thousand.'
'But what I said is true! Charlie Waterhouse is a——'
'What's that got to do with it. You can't prove it. And we aren't strong enough to hire counsel and detectives and run him to earth. Doesn't look as if we had the barest breath of life in us. Charlie'll think of your uncle next, and attach your mother's estate.'
He said this with unusual roughness. Then he went upstairs; stamped around for a brief time; came hurrying down.