"What is the collateral?" asked Tonsor, slowly raising his wrinkled
eyelids.
"Bullion's notes for seventeen thousand dollars."
"And Bullion gone to protest."
"He'll come up again."
"Perhaps; but while he is down, I can't do anything with his paper. The
truth is, Fletcher, you ought not to have advanced the money for him.
Remember, I warned you when you were about to do it."
Fletcher did not look as though he found the "Balm of I-told-you-so"
very consoling.
Tonsor continued,--
"Now, if I were in your place, I would go and make a clean breast of it
to Danforth. It was wrong, though I know you didn't mean any harm. He
may be angry, but he won't touch you. You _can't_ raise ten thousand
dollars in these times,--not to save your soul."
"Keep your advice, and your money, too," said Fletcher, in sullen
despair. "I ask for bread, and you give me a stone. Your moral lecture
won't pay my debts."
He turned away abruptly and went again to Bullion's office. It was still
closed. Determined at all hazards to see the man for whom he had risked
so much, he went to his house on Beacon Hill. The servant said Mr.
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