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Men may be hard up or even stone-broke; there are slums; there are hard-worked women; but there is no general fear of poverty. In the old countries the fear of poverty lies on all hearts like lead. To be sure, such a fear is a survival in England.
Being stone-broke when you go on board doesn't matter if you ship forward; but aft, to start with bare pockets may get you a bad name. I had maundered out to the Campo Santo that last day, and on the road back, just after passing through the walls, an Englishman who had lost himself asked the way to the market-place.
"Poor thing! I should like you, Dr. Parsons, to to let her know that she has friends. Will you let me help. Fifty pounds or a hundred pounds won't hurt me... and I've been stone-broke myself. But a man can always peg along in the bush; and it's an awful thing for a child like that to be adrift in a big city."
I saw he had been tempted; I knew from his letters that he was in no condition to resist. How had he sacrificed the absent? "Jim," I said, "you must speak right out. I've got all that I can carry." "Well," he said "I know it was a liberty I made it out you were no business man, only a stone-broke painter; that half the time you didn't know anything, anyway, particularly money and accounts.
"That has nothing to do with it, because I am not going to gamble, Jack Ward himself asked me not to play roulette." "But Ward belongs to a gambling set " "I suppose he can please himself about that," I retorted, and it was not altogether wise of me. "And you will always be hearing racing 'shop, and how much somebody won, nobody ever talks about their losses until they are stone-broke."
His reply was to take out his cheque-book and his fountain-pen and fill in a cheque to Miss Sissie Prohack or order. He saw no just reason for differentiating between the sexes in his offspring. He had given a cheque to Charlie; he gave one to Sissie. "Then you aren't absolutely stone-broke," said Sissie, smiling. "I should not so describe myself."
Try and remember this place. And, by the way, what's your name? 'I'm Bessic, Bessie It's no use giving the rest. Bessie Broke, Stone-broke, if you like. What's your names? But there, no one ever gives the real ones. Dick consulted Torpenhow with his eyes. 'My name's Heldar, and my friend's called Torpenhow; and you must be sure to come here. Where do you live?
'Think so? Dick began to dance on his heels, singing 'They're as proud as a turkey when they hold the ready cash, You ought to 'ear the way they laugh an' joke; They are tricky an' they're funny when they've got the ready money, Ow! but see 'em when they're all stone-broke.
But," with a comic grimace, "it's dollars to doughnuts that both of 'em will be stone-broke. I know something about that innocent little game called roulette." "But if she's broke, what the devil shall we do?" Smith put this question in no calm frame of mind. "Forty dollars; it's a heap just now." "She said she had another plan," said Worth.
"But you," said Forrest to the earl, "what would you do if you were stone-broke?" "I would marry Dorothy to-morrow," said the earl, "instead of waiting until September. Fortunately, I have a certain amount of assets that the law won't allow me to get rid of." "I wish you could," said Forrest. "Why?" The earl wrinkled his eyebrows. "I would like to see what you would do."
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