The night before Wallie started North for college Angela went to him in
his little bed-and-workroom and asked the temporary loan of seventy-five
dollars. In the interval, she had learned that her father had a patient;
it seemed, indeed, that he had had her for some time, only she was not
an office patient, so nobody had known about her. Also, Angela
anticipated that the housekeeping allowance would prove rather more
squeezable now, with Wallie gone. Still, one cannot pass into the
motor-car classes on a shoestring, of course; and Wallie, with his
prodigal allowance and his handsome store in the bank, now literally
rolled in wealth.
Brilliant prosperity, however, did not seem to have improved her little
brother's character; he proved to be as reluctant as ever to "part."
After a good deal of unworthy haggling, he agreed to lend Angela but
fifty dollars, and actually entered the amount in a ridiculous little
black book he kept for such things.
The joke of it was that fifty dollars was really more than Angela had
expected. She went out from the interview well pleased. Her resolve was
to spend thirty dollars of Wallie's loan on a new suit, and keep all the
rest for gasoline.