publishers and to rehearse them. Fifty dollars, he said, would just help him out swell. Hubert turned him down flat. Billy reduced his appeal to twenty dollars, but Hubert was adamant. To less than twenty dollars Billy refused to stoop.
He told his story to Lillian in the kitchen, whither they two had gone to make coffee.
"Hubert has taken a fierce dislike to me," he ended up. "I guess we hadn't better come around any more."
Lillian wanted to tell him that Hubert believed that he had given away enough money, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Billy was so like a disappointed child. She racked her brain for something that would appease him and put Hubert in a better light.
"The truth is," she whispered, feeling very delighted with her power of imagination, "Hubert is a little pressed for cash. That's it," she went on, growing positively excited over her creative genius. "He's in a bit of a hole."
"Well, what are you so happy about?" Billy asked. "Happy?"
"Sure. You're giggling about it as though it was sweet news."
"Well, I try to be cheerful no matter what happens," she told him.
She wanted to tell Hubert about the wrong steer she had given Billy, but remembered in time that she couldn't. He would be sore at Billy for carrying the story to Lillian and he would be sore at her for not telling Billy the plain fact that he was tired of handing money out. The more she thought over the situation,
