"On Willy's part?"
"Yes. He is reported to have squandered the means placed in his hands, after a shameless fashion."
"Is the loss heavy?"
"So it is said."
"How much?"
"Reaching to thirty or forty thousand dollars. But this is rumor, and, of course, an exaggeration."
"Of course. No such loss as that could have been made. But what was done with the money? How could Willy have spent it? He dashes about a great deal; buys fast horses, drinks rather freely, and all that; but thirty or forty thousand dollars couldn't escape in this way."
At the moment a swift trotting horse, bearing a light sulky and a man, went by.
"There goes young Hammond's three hundred dollar animal," said the last speaker.
"It was Willy Hammond's yesterday. But there has been a change of ownership since then; I happen to know."