get his lessons, and they went with different crowds of fellows.

"Their father, as I told you, was rich, and he was also indulgent. He
gave the boys a larger allowance of spending money than was good for
them. There was never a month, however, that Tom did not go to Bill and
borrow some of his, and even then Tom was always in debt. Bill knew it
was the gay company Tom kept, and warned him against it, but Tom would
laugh it off and say that a fellow in the upper classes had to keep up
his end, as Bill would learn later.

"What Bill did learn later was that Tom had become an inveterate
gambler, and had lost his money at cards, and went away from college
leaving many debts unpaid.

"The father of the boys was a manufacturer, and was also president of
the bank in the little city where they lived. A bank is a place where
other people's money is kept for them, and whenever the people who keep
money there need any, they come and get what they need. When Tom left
college he was taken into the bank, and before Bill's graduation had
been advanced to the position of cashier, and had married a very fine
young woman. The cashier is the man that has charge of the money in the
bank.

"It was thought best also for Bill to enter the bank, which he did a few
months after his return from college, as assistant to his brother.

"Things went on very well until, one day, a man came to examine the bank
and to see if all the money was safely there, and the examiner, as the
man was called, discovered a shortage. That is, there was not as much
money in the bank as there should have been. The shortage lay between