“I’ve come to you, Mr. Tutt,” she explained apologetically, “because I always said that if I ever was in trouble you’d be the one to whom I should go to help me out.”

“What greater compliment could I receive?”

“Well, in those days I never thought that time would come,” she went on.  “You remember my husband—­Jim?  Jim died two years ago.  And little Jimmy—­our eldest—­he was only fourteen when you boarded with us—­he was killed at the Front last July.”  She paused and felt for her handkerchief, but could not find it.  “I still keep the house; but do you know how old I am, Mr. Tutt?  I’m seventy-one!  And the two older girls got married long ago and I’m all alone except for Jessie, the youngest—­and I haven’t told her anything about it.”

“Yes?” said Mr. Tutt sympathetically.  “What haven’t you told her about?”

“My trouble.  You see, Jessie’s not a well girl—­she really ought to live out West somewhere, the doctor says—­and Jim and I had saved up all these years so that after we were gone she would have something to live on.  We saved twelve thousand dollars—­and put it into Government bonds.”

“You couldn’t have anything safer, at any rate,” remarked the lawyer.  “I think you did exceedingly well.”

“Now comes the awful part of it all!” exclaimed Mrs. Effingham, clasping her hands.  “I’m afraid it’s gone—­gone forever.  I should have consulted you first before I did it, but it all seemed so fair and above-board that I never thought.”

“Have you got rid of your bonds?”

“Yes—­no—­that is, the bank has them.  You see I borrowed ten thousand dollars on them and gave it to Mr. Badger to invest in his oil company for me.”

Mr. Tutt groaned inwardly.  Badger was the most celebrated of Wall Street’s near-financiers.

“Where on earth did you meet Badger?” he demanded.

“Why, he boarded with me—­for a long time,” she answered.  “I’ve no complaint to make of Mr. Badger.  He’s a very handsome polite gentleman.  And I don’t feel altogether right about coming to you and saying anything that might be taken against him—­but lately I’ve heard so many things—­”

“Don’t worry about Badger!” growled Mr. Tutt.  “How did you come to invest in his oil stock?”

“I was there when he got the telegram telling how they had found oil on the property; it came one night at dinner.  He was tickled to death.  The stock had been selling at three cents a share, and, of course, after the oil was discovered he said it would go right up to ten dollars.  But he was real nice about it—­he said anybody who had been living there in the house could share his good fortune with him, come in on the ground floor, and have it just the same for three cents.  A week later there came a photograph of the gusher and almost all of us decided to buy stock.”

At this point in the narrative Mr. Tutt kicked the coal hod violently and uttered a smothered ejaculation.