"Neither have I, my dear boy," he said, in his most careless voice,
puffing out rings of smoke in the interval between his clauses;
"but I don't, therefore, go mad. I don't tear my hair over it;
though, to be sure, I'm a deal worse off than you. My position's at
stake. If Drummonds were to hear of it--sack--sack instanter. As
to making yourself responsible for what you don't possess, that's
simply speculation. Everybody on the Stock Exchange always does
it. If they didn't there'd be no such thing as enterprise at all.
You can't make a fortune by risking a ha'penny."
"But what am I to do?" Guy cried wildly. "However am I to raise
three thousand pounds? I should be ashamed to let Cyril know I'd
defaulted like this. If I can't find the money I shall go mad or
kill myself."
Montague Nevitt played him gently, as an experienced angler plays
a plunging trout, before proceeding to land him. At last, after
offering Guy much sympathetic advice, and suggesting several
intentionally feeble schemes, only to quash them instantly, he
observed with a certain apologetic air of unobtrusive friendliness,
"Well, if the worst comes to the worst, you've one thing to fall
back upon: There's that six-thousand, of course, coming in by-and-by
from the unknown benefactor.
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