She
exclaimed remorsefully: "And you started with three thousand! What
did I do with it?"
"We both had the time of our lives with it!" said Carter stoutly.
"And that's all there is to that. Post-mortems," he pointed out,
"are useful only as guides to the future, and as our future will
never hold a second three thousand dollars, we needn't worry about
how we spent the first one. No! What we must consider now is how we
can grow rich quick, and the quicker and richer, the better.
Pawning our clothes, or what's left of them, is bad economics.
There's no use considering how to live from meal to meal. We must
evolve something big, picturesque, that will bring a fortune. You
have imagination; I'm supposed to have imagination, we must think
of a plan to get money, much money. I do not insist on our plan
being dignified, or even outwardly respectable; so long as it keeps
you alive, it may be as desperate as--"
"I see!" cried Dolly; "like sending mother Black Hand letters!"
"Blackmail----" began that lady's son-in-law doubtfully.
"Or!" cried Dolly, "we might kidnap Mr. Carnegie when he's walking
in the park alone, and hold him for ransom. Or"--she rushed on--
"we might forge a codicil to father's will, and make it say if
mother shouldn't like the man I want to marry, all of father's
fortune must go to my husband!"
"Forgery," exclaimed Champneys, "is going further than I----"
"And another plan," interrupted Dolly," that I have always had in
mind, is to issue a cheaper edition of your book, 'The Dead Heat.
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