MOURONS POUR LA PATRIE!


The next week was a busy one for me. I spent it in scraping together
every bit of cash I could lay my hands on. If I could get together
enough to pay the interest on the three hundred thousand dollars
supposed to be invested in approved securities,--really disposed of in
a manner only known to his Excellency,--I should have six months to
look about me. Now, remaining out of my "bonus" was _nil_, out of my
"reserve fund" ten thousand dollars. This was enough. But alas! how
happened it that this sum was in my hands? Because I had borrowed
five thousand from the bank! If they wouldn't let their own manager
overdraw, whom would they? So I overdrew. But if this money wasn't
back before the monthly balancing, Jones would know! And I dared not
rely on being able to stop his mouth again. When I said Johnny Carr
was the only honest man in Aureataland I forgot Jones. To my grief and
annoyance Jones also was honest, and Jones would consider it his duty
to let the directors know of my overdraft. If once they knew, I was
lost, for an overdraft effected privately from the safe by the manager
is, I do not deny it, decidedly irregular. Unless I could add five
thousand dollars to my ten thousand before the end of the month I
should have to bolt!

This melancholy conclusion was reenforced and rendered demonstrable by
a letter which arrived, to crown my woes, from my respected father,
informing me that he had unhappily become indebted to our chairman in
the sum of two thousand pounds, the result of a deal between them,
that he had seen the chairman, that the chairman was urgent for
payment, that he used most violent language against our family in
general, ending by declaring his intention of stopping my salary to