This seemed very obliging, but I am disposed to think that a boy’s worst enemy is the one who makes it easy for him to run into debt.  Randolph was not wholly without caution, for he said:  “But suppose, Tony, I am not able to pay when you want the money?”

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself about that, Mr. Duncan,” said Tony cordially.  “Of course, I know the standing of your family, and I am perfectly safe.  Some time you will be a rich man.”

“Yes, I suppose I shall,” said Randolph, in a consequential tone.

“And it is worth something to me to have my saloon patronized by a young gentleman of your social standing.”

Evidently, Tony Denton understood Randolph’s weak point, and played on it skillfully.  He assumed an air of extra consequence, as he remarked condescendingly:  “You are very obliging, Tony, and I shall not forget it.”

Tony Denton laughed in his sleeve at the boy’s vanity, but his manner was very respectful, and Randolph looked upon him as an humble friend and admirer.

“He is a sensible man, Tony; he understands what is due to my position,” he said to himself.

After Denton’s visit to New York with Prince Duncan, and the knowledge which he then acquired about the president of the Groveton Bank, he decided that the time had come to cut short Randolph’s credit with him.  The day of reckoning always comes in such cases, as I hope my young friends will fully understand.  Debt is much more easily contracted than liquidated, and this Randolph found to his cost.

One morning he was about to start on a game of billiards, when Tony Denton called him aside.

“I would like to speak a word to you, Mr. Duncan,” he said smoothly.

“All right, Tony,” said Randolph, in a patronizing tone.  “What can I do for you?”

“My rent comes due to-morrow, Mr. Duncan, and I should be glad if you would pay me a part of your account.  It has been running some time—­”

Randolph’s jaw fell, and he looked blank.

“How much do I owe you?” he asked.

Tony referred to a long ledgerlike account-book, turned to a certain page, and running his fingers down a long series of items, answered, “Twenty-seven dollars and sixty cents.”

“It can’t be so much!” ejaculated Randolph, in dismay.  “Surely you have made a mistake!”

“You can look for yourself,” said Tony suavely.  “Just reckon it up; I may have made a little mistake in the sum total.”

Randolph looked over the items, but he was nervous, and the page swam before his eyes.  He was quite incapable of performing the addition, simple as it was, in his then frame of mind.

“I dare say you have added it up all right,” he said, after an abortive attempt to reckon it up, “but I can hardly believe that I owe you so much.”

“‘Many a little makes a mickle,’ as we Scotch say,” answered Tony cheerfully.  “However, twenty-seven dollars is a mere trifle to a young man like you.  Come, if you’ll pay me to-night, I’ll knock off the sixty cents.”