"You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from
here."'

"Very nearly so."

"How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?"

"Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars."

"A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's
enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a
time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for
my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from
shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But
you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go
away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the
antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your
ruin."

"I imagine it is," said North cheerfully.

"You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued
graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham
yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his
grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time."

"I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?"

"Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible