"It is for two hundred dollars!" he exclaimed. "Mother, we are growing rich. With the balance in my hands, which Mr. Gilbert told me to keep, I have two hundred and forty dollars."

"We have much to be thankful for, Mark. Compare our present state with three months since. Shall you go back to the telegraph office?"

"No; Mr. Gilbert will probably give me a place in his counting-room, but I shall wait a few days first. Is there any news?"

"Your uncle has been to see me again. He offered me five hundred dollars if I would sign a release to him as executor."

"You didn't do it?"

"No."

"I am glad. Mother, Uncle Solon is trying to swindle us out of a large sum. I heard about the Golden Hope mine when I was away. The shares are booming, and I shall to-morrow call on my friend the lawyer and request him to communicate with Mr. Talbot."

"I leave the matter in your hands, Mark. Though you are so young, you seem to have a judgment beyond your years."

"Thank you for the compliment, mother. I am afraid Uncle Solon would not agree with you. That reminds me. I have an engagement with Edgar to-morrow evening."

"Indeed! I thought you and Edgar were not friendly."

"He has got into a sc.r.a.pe, and I have promised to help him out."

"Is it anything serious?"

"He owes an adventurer seventy-five dollars, and the latter is trying to frighten him into paying it. I know the man to be a swindler, and shall be able to foil him in his plans."

"If you can be of service to Edgar I hope you will. He has not treated you well, but he is your cousin."

The next evening Edgar Talbot walked into the Fifth Avenue Hotel. He felt nervous, for he did not understand how Mark could help him. It seemed strange to him that he should be indebted to his poor and almost despised cousin for help in his time of trouble.

A minute after Mark entered looking cheerful and happy.

"Good evening, Edgar," he said. "Has our friend Schuyler appeared?"

"Not yet."

"I don't want him to see me at first. I will go into the reading room, and when you get ready invite him in there. First, draw him out and see what he proposes to do."

Mark's confident manner somewhat allayed Edgar's alarm. He was proud and arrogant, but he had little courage.

He sat down on the sofa at the left hand side of the entrance and in about five minutes Hamilton Schuyler swaggered in. He was carefully dressed and had a rose in his b.u.t.tonhole.

"I am going to the opera this evening with a fashionable party," he said, "and I shall have to hurry up my business with you."

"I am here on time," said Edgar.

"I see. Well, I suppose you have brought the money with you."

"You mean the seventy-five dollars?"

"Of course I do."

"No, Mr. Schuyler, I have not brought the money."

"And why not, I should like to know?" demanded Schuyler with a dark frown.

"Because I have no means of getting it."

"That isn't my lookout. It is yours. That money I must and will have."

Edgar had been told by Mark what to say, and he replied, "Then, I think, Mr. Schuyler, you will have to sue me."

"Nonsense! I shall adopt quite a different course."

"What is that?"

"I will lay the matter before your father."

Edgar winced, but he was prepared with a reply.

"I don't think it will do you any good. Father won't pay such a bill as that."

"At any rate it will get you into trouble with him."

"Yes it might," said Edgar nervously.

Schuyler saw his advantage. He must play upon the fears of his young dupe.

"Come, Edgar," he said, "suppose we talk over this matter sensibly. You are indebted to me in the sum of seventy-five dollars."

"I never got any value for it."

"It is the result of several fair and honest bets which you lost. As a boy of honor, you must pay me."

"I have told you that I don't know where to get the money."

"And I suggested a plan."

"You suggested that I should appropriate some of the money I was given by my employer to deposit in the Park Bank."

"Hush!" said Schuyler apprehensively. "Don't blurt out secrets."

"Well, you hinted at some such thing."

"I don't care how you get the money. If you know what is best for yourself, you'll get it somehow and somewhere."

"I thought you were wealthy, Mr. Schuyler. I didn't think you would press me like this."

"I am wealthy, but as I told you I have met with some losses recently, or I would have given you more time on this debt."