drank a large tumbler of wine to cure his choking.
Booby was bewildered.
"My … father 's … paid?" he said slowly.
Jimmy nodded to confirm the great truth.
"Touched last week, Booby" he said.
"Where?" wondered the astonished Booby.
"At the bank," said Melba, and Jimmy added, "Oddly enough."
"Not the whole thing?" said Booby, his face changing in expression as he said it.
Melba's mouth being full for the moment, he did no more than lift up his eyes, nod and grunt. Jimmy, who was occupied in a swill, put down the inebriant, drew a breath, and said—
"The whole boodle!"
It was perhaps well for the two young men principally concerned that they were rapidly getting drunk, for in early youth the vice of drunkenness, so fatal to maturer years, will often lead to astonishing virtues. And long before they came to the cheese Jimmy and Melba had discovered that they must talk of the matter seriously. Indeed, Jimmy verged on the sentimental, Melba upon the stupidly pompous, as the ordeal approached. It was
