Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 91

I sprang up from the chair in terror. It was as if some blast had swept over me, "Ninety-two pounds! Tod! do you owe _that_?"

"I suppose I do."

"_Ninety-two pounds!_ It cannot be. Why, it is close upon a hundred!"

Crayton laughed at my consternation, and Temply stared.

"If you'll go on playing, you may redeem some of it, Todhetley," said Crayton. "Come, sit down."

"I will not touch another card to-night," said he, doggedly. "I have said it: and I am not one to break my word: as Johnny Ludlow here can testify to. I don't know that I shall play again after to-night."

Crayton was offended. Cool though he was, I think he was somewhat the worse for what he had taken--perhaps they all were. "Then you'll make arrangements for paying your debts," said he, in scornful tones.

"Yes, I'll do that," answered Tod. And he got away. So did I, after a minute or two: Gusty kept me, talking.

In pa.s.sing upstairs, for we slept on the third floor, Mr. Pell came suddenly out of a room on the left; a candle in one hand and some papers in the other, and a look on his face as of some great trouble.

"What! are you young men not in bed yet?" he exclaimed. "It is late."

"We are going up now. Is anything the matter, sir?" I could not help asking.

"The matter?" he repeated.

"I thought you looked worried."

"I am worried with work," he said, laughing slightly. "While others take their rest, I have to be up at my books and letters. Great wealth brings great care with it, Johnny Ludlow, and hard work as well. Good night, my lad."

Tod was pacing the room with his hands in his pockets. It was a terrible position for him to be in. Owing a hundred pounds--to put it in round numbers--for a debt of honour. No means of his own, not daring to tell his father. I mounted on the iron rail of my little bed opposite the window, and looked at him.

"Tod, what _is_ to be done?"

"For two pins I'd go and enlist in some African regiment," growled he.

"Once over the seas, I should be lost to the world here, and my shame with me."

"Shame!"

"Well, and it is shame. An ordinary debt that you can't pay is bad enough; but a debt of honour----"

He stopped, and caught his breath with a sort of sob--as if there were no word strong enough to express the sense of shame.

"It will never do to tell the Pater."

"Tell _him_!" he exclaimed sharply. "Johnny, I'd cut off my right hand--I'd fling myself into the Thames, rather than bring such a blow on him."

"Well, and so I think would I."

"It would kill him as sure as we are here, Johnny. He would look upon it that I have become a confirmed gambler, and I believe the shock and grief would be such that he'd die of it. No: I have not been so particularly dutiful a son, that I should bring _that_ upon him."

I balanced myself on the bed-rail. Tod paced the carpet slowly.

"No, never," he repeated, as if there had not been any pause. "I would rather die myself."

"But what is to be done?"

"Heaven knows! I wish the Pells had been far enough before they had invited us up."

"I wish you had never consented to play with the lot at all, Tod. You might have stood out from the first."

"Ay. But one glides into these things unconsciously. Johnny, I begin to think Crayton is just a gambler, playing to win, and nothing better."

"Playing for his bread. That is, for the things that const.i.tute it. His drink, and his smoke, and his lodgings, and his boots, and his rings.

Old Brandon said it. As to his dinners, he generally gets them at friends' houses."

"Old Brandon said it, did he?"

"Why, I told you so the same day. And you bade me shut up."

"Do you know what they want me to do, Johnny? To sign a post-obit bond for two hundred, or so, to be paid after my father's death. It's true.

Crayton will let me off then."

"And will you do it?" I cried, feeling that my eyes blazed as I leaped down.

"No, I _won't_: and I told them so to-night. That's what the quarrel was about. 'Every young fellow does it whose father lives too long and keeps him out of his property,' said that Temply. 'Maybe so; I won't,' I answered. Neither will I. I'd rather break stones on the road than speculate upon the good Pater's death, or antic.i.p.ate his money in that manner to hide my sins."

"Gusty Pell ought to help you."

"Gusty says he can't. Fabian, I believe, really can't; he is in difficulties of his own: and sometimes, Johnny, I fancy Gus is. Crayton fleeces them both, unless I am mistaken. Yes, he's a sharper; I see through him now. I want him to take my I O U to pay him as soon as I can, and he knows I would do it, but he won't do that. There's two o'clock."

It was of no use sitting up, and I began to undress. The question reiterated itself again and again--what was to be done? I lay awake all night thinking, vainly wis.h.i.+ng I was of age. Fanciful thoughts crossed my mind: of appealing to rich old Pell, and asking him to lend the money, not betraying Gusty and the rest by saying what it was wanted for; of carrying the story to Miss Deveen, and asking her; and lastly, of going to old Brandon, and getting _him_ to help. I grew to think that I _would_ do this, however much I disliked it, and try Brandon; that it lay in my duty to do so.

Worn and haggard enough looked Tod the next morning. He had sat up nearly all night. When breakfast was over, I started for the Tavistock, whispering a word to Tod first.

"Avoid the lot to-day, Tod. I'll try and help you out of the mess."

He burst out laughing in the midst of his perplexity. "_You_, Johnny!

what next?"

"Remember the fable of the lion and the mouse."

"But you can never be the mouse in this, you mite of a boy! Thank you all the same, Johnny: you mean it well."

"Can I see Mr. Brandon?" I asked at the hotel, of a strange waiter.

"Mr. Brandon, sir? He is not staying here."

"Not staying here!"

"No, sir, he left some days ago."