Mark Mason's Victory Part 64

"Are you indeed? I never did any business with them, but I understand that they stand very high."

"I think they are rich."

The game was played, and resulted in the success of Edgar.

"Really, you play a strong game. Suppose--just for the excitement of it--we stake a dollar on the next game. What do you say?"

"All right!"

Edgar had received his week's pay in the afternoon, and was well provided. He flattered himself he could play better than Schuyler, and thought it would be very agreeable to win money in that way. Schuyler managed to let him win.

"Really," he said with pretended annoyance, "I am afraid you are more than a match for me."

"Perhaps I was lucky," said Edgar, elated.

"At any rate I will try again. Let us call it two dollars."

"Very well," a.s.sented Edgar.

Somehow this game was won by his opponent by five points. Edgar was annoyed, for this took a dollar from his pocket, and it had been arranged that the loser should pay for the use of the tables.

It was an accident, however, and he kept on. At the close of the evening he was without a cent.

"I have been unlucky," he said, trying to hide his mortification. "I have lost all the money I had with me."

"That is too bad. Here, give me a memorandum for two dollars, and I will hand you back that amount. Some time when you are in funds you can pay me."

"Thank you!" said Edgar in a tone of relief.

"You are really a better player than I am," went on Schuyler, "but the b.a.l.l.s happened to run in my favor. Another evening I shall be the loser."

This was the first of Edgar's acquaintance with Schuyler Hamilton, but it was by no means the last. They got into the way of meeting nearly every night and Edgar ran more and more into Schuyler's debt. However, Hamilton was very easy with him. He accepted memorandums of indebtedness, which somehow seemed a very easy way of paying debts.

Edgar did not reflect that a day of reckoning must come at last.

At last Hamilton Schuyler thought it time to bring matters to a crisis.

"Do you know how much you are owing me, Edgar?" he said one evening.

"No," answered Edgar uneasily.

"Seventy-five dollars!"

"It can't be!" exclaimed Edgar, incredulous.

"These things increase faster than you think for," said Schuyler carelessly.

"I suppose you'll let it run," remarked Edgar with a troubled look.

"I should be glad to do so, my dear boy, but I need the money. I was. .h.i.t rather hard at the races yesterday, and the long and short of it is, that you will have to pay me."

"I can't pay you," said Edgar doggedly.

Schuyler frowned.

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded sternly.

"I mean exactly what I say. I haven't got any money. I only get five dollars a week, and I can't spare any of that."

"You've got to get the money. You had no business to bet if you couldn't pay."

"I never did bet till I got acquainted with you."

"Enough of this, boy!" said Hamilton, waving his hand in a dignified manner. "I shall have to lay the matter before your father."

"No, don't do that! He wouldn't let me keep my wages."

"That is your affair, not mine. Can't you tell him you want to pay a tailor's bill, and get the money that way?"

"No; I get my clothes charged at his tailor's."

"Oh, well, I don't care how you get it as long as you do get it. Doesn't your father leave any money lying about in his desk or in his bureau drawers?"

"No. Besides, you don't want me to steal, do you?"

"Not if you can get the money any other way."

"Look here, Mr. Schuyler, I thought you were rich. How do you happen to be in want of seventy-five dollars?"

"Anybody might be short of money. One day when I was traveling in the Adirondacks, I met a rich man--a millionaire--who was in trouble. 'I say, Schuyler,' he said to me, 'can you loan me a hundred dollars. I give you my word I am almost penniless, and no one knows me here.' Now I happened to have three hundred dollars in my pocketbook, and I at once produced it and lent him the money. You see even a millionaire can get into a money sc.r.a.pe."

"Who was the millionaire?" asked Edgar, who was not quite so credulous a believer of Schuyler's pictures as formerly.

"I don't feel at liberty to tell. It would not be honorable. But to come back to our own business! You must make some arrangement to pay me."

"Tell me how," said Edgar sulkily.

"Don't you deposit for your firm in the Park Bank?"

"Yes."

"Always checks?"

"Sometimes there are bank bills."

Schuyler bent over and whispered in Edgar's ear. Edgar flushed and then looked nervous and agitated.

"You ask me to do that," he said.