“I’m beastly sorry,” Aynesworth said truthfully.  “I wish I could help you.”

Nesbitt raised his head.  A sudden light flashed in his eyes; he spoke quickly, almost feverishly.

“Say, Aynesworth,” he exclaimed, “do you think you could do anything with your governor for me?  You see—­it’s ruin if I have to pay up.  I wouldn’t mind—­for myself, but I was married four months ago, and I can’t bear the thought of going home—­and telling her.  All the money we have between us is in my business, and we’ve got no rich friends or anything of that sort.  I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to be hammered.  I’ve been so careful, too!  I didn’t want to take this on, but it seemed such a soft thing!  If I could get off with twenty thousand, I’d keep my head up.  I hate to talk like this.  I’d go down like a man if I were alone, but—­but—­oh!  Confound it all—!” he exclaimed with an ominous break in his tone.

Aynesworth laid his hand upon the boy’s arm.

“Look here,” he said, “I’ll try what I can do with Mr. Wingrave.  Wait here!”

Aynesworth found his employer alone with his broker, who was just hastening off to keep an appointment.  He plunged at once into his appeal.

“Mr. Wingrave,” he said, “you have just had a young broker named Nesbitt on.”

Wingrave glanced at a paper by his side.

“Yes,” he said.  “Six hundred short!  I wish they wouldn’t come to me.”

“I’ve been talking to him downstairs,” Aynesworth said.  “This will break him.”

“Then I ought not to have done business with him at all,” Wingrave said coolly.  “If he cannot find sixty thousand dollars, he has no right to be in Wall street.  I daresay he’ll pay, though!  They all plead poverty—­curs!”

“I think Nesbitt’s case is a little different from the others,” Aynesworth continued.  “He is quite young, little more than a boy, and he has only just started in business.  To be hammered would be absolute ruin for him.  He seems such a decent young fellow, and he’s only just married.  He’s in an awful state downstairs.  I wish you’d have another talk with him.  I think you’d feel inclined to let him down easy.”

Wingrave smiled coldly.

“My dear Aynesworth,” he said, “you astonish me.  I am not interested in this young man’s future or in his matrimonial arrangements.  He has gambled with me and lost.  I presume that he would have taken my money if I had been the fool they all thought me.  As it is, I mean to have his—­down to the last cent!”

“He isn’t like the others,” Aynesworth protested doggedly.  “He’s only a boy—­and it seems such jolly hard luck, doesn’t it, only four months married!  New York hasn’t much pity for paupers.  He looks mad enough to blow his brains out.  Have him up, sir, and see if you can’t compromise!”

“Fetch him,” Wingrave said curtly.

Aynesworth hurried downstairs.  The boy was walking restlessly up and down the room.  The look he turned upon Aynesworth was almost pitiful.