“I see,” said the other. “Then the man is in Chicago?”
“No,” was the reply. “That is his wife. He wires to her.”
“—How much money have you?” asked Oliver, after a pause.
“I’ve most of the fifty thousand,” the other answered, “and about thirty thousand we brought with us.”
“How much can you put your hands on?”
“Why, I could get all of it; but part of the money is mother’s, and I would not touch that.”
The younger man was about to remonstrate, but Montague stopped him, “I will put up the fifty thousand I have earned,” he said. “I dare not risk any more.”
Oliver shrugged his shoulders. “As you please,” he said. “You may never have another such chance in your life.”
He dropped the subject, or at least he probably tried to. Within a few minutes, however, he was back at it again, with the result that by the time they reached the banking-district, Montague had agreed to draw sixty thousand.
They stopped at his bank. “It isn’t open yet,—” said Oliver, “but the paying teller will oblige you. Tell him you want it before the Exchange opens.”