"How about your eldest brother—Lord Charters?"
"No good," the Honorable Bertie replied, gloomily; "we are on bad terms. And George is in New York."
"Then I must put you on your feet again."
"You!"
"Yes; I will lift your paper—the whole of it."
"Impossible! I can't accept money from a friend!"
"I'm more than that, my boy—or will be. Isn't your brother going to marry my cousin? And, anyway, we'll call it a loan. I'll take your I O U for the amount, and you can have twenty years to repay it—a hundred if you like. I can easily spare the money."
"I tell you I won't—"
"Don't tell me anything. It's settled. I mean to do it."
Bertie broke down; his scruples yielded before his friend's persistence.