"No," George said. "I've a very little of my own. I'll use that."
He had, perhaps, two hundred dollars in the bank at Princeton. He drew a check without hesitation and followed Blodgett's advice. He had commenced to speculate without risk. Several times after that Blodgett jerked out similar advice, usually commencing with: "What does young Pierpont Morgan think of so and so?" And usually George would give his employer a reasonable forecast. Because of these discreet hints his balance grew, and Mundy one day announced that his salary had been raised ten dollars.
All that, however, was the brighter side. Often during those hot, heavy nights, while he pieced together the day's complicated pattern, George envied the fortunates who could play away from pavements and baking walls. He found himself counting the days until he would go back to Princeton and football, and Betty's charm; but even that prospect was shadowed by his doubt as to how he would emerge from the club tangle.
He didn't meet Sylvia, but one day he saw Old Planter step from an automobile and enter the marble temple where he was accustomed to sacrifice corporations and people to the gods of his pocket-book. The great man used a heavy stick and climbed the steps rather slowly, flanked by obsequious underlings, gaped at by a crowd, buzzing and over-impressed. Somehow George couldn't fancy Blodgett with the gout—it was too delightfully bred.
He peered in the automobile, but of course Sylvia wasn't there, nor, he gathered from his mother's occasional notes to thank him for the little money he could send her, was she much at Oakmont.
"I'll see her this fall," he told himself, "and next winter. I've started to do what I said I would."
As far as Wall Street was concerned, Blodgett evidently agreed with him.
"I can put up with you next summer," he said at parting. "I'll write Mr. Alston you're fit for something besides football."
Mundy displayed a pastoral sadness.
"You ought to stay right here," he said. "College is all right if you don't want to amount to a hill of beans. It's rotten for making money."