“That weren’t fair!” broke in Jimmy. “’Tweren’t honest for Tom to let Bill get all the punishment!”

“He didn’t mean to be dishonest, I’m sure,” said Skipper Ed.

“But ’tweren’t honest,” insisted Jimmy.

“As I was saying,” continued Skipper Ed, “Tom went to college and made new friends, and when Bill followed him to college two years later the lads saw little of each other.  Tom was a brilliant fellow, and everyone liked him.  He had a host of friends among the students.  Bill, on the other hand, was not in the least brilliant, and he had to work hard to get his lessons, and they went with different crowds of fellows.

“Their father, as I told you, was rich, and he was also indulgent.  He gave the boys a larger allowance of spending money than was good for them.  There was never a month, however, that Tom did not go to Bill and borrow some of his, and even then Tom was always in debt.  Bill knew it was the gay company Tom kept, and warned him against it, but Tom would laugh it off and say that a fellow in the upper classes had to keep up his end, as Bill would learn later.

“What Bill did learn later was that Tom had become an inveterate gambler, and had lost his money at cards, and went away from college leaving many debts unpaid.

“The father of the boys was a manufacturer, and was also president of the bank in the little city where they lived.  A bank is a place where other people’s money is kept for them, and whenever the people who keep money there need any, they come and get what they need.  When Tom left college he was taken into the bank, and before Bill’s graduation had been advanced to the position of cashier, and had married a very fine young woman.  The cashier is the man that has charge of the money in the bank.

“It was thought best also for Bill to enter the bank, which he did a few months after his return from college, as assistant to his brother.

“Things went on very well until, one day, a man came to examine the bank and to see if all the money was safely there, and the examiner, as the man was called, discovered a shortage.  That is, there was not as much money in the bank as there should have been.  The shortage lay between the two brothers.  Tom, in terrible distress, admitted to Bill that he had ‘just borrowed’ the money to invest in stocks—­which is a way people speak of one kind of gambling—­but that the investment had failed, and he had lost it.

“You do not know, Partner, what stocks are, but I’ll tell you some other time.

“When this happened Tom had a little baby boy at home, about two months old.  Bill loved his brother, and he loved his brother’s baby very much.

“‘Tom,’ said Bill, ’I’ve always stood by you since we were little boys and played in the garden together, and I’m going to stand by you now.  If the loss is laid to you it will ruin not only your life but the lives of your wife and your baby.  I’ll say that I took the money and you must not say I did not.’