



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by Google Books








THE LAST PENNY

By Edwin Lefevre

Harper And Brothers Publishers

New York And London

1917

[Illustration: 0008]

[Illustration: 0011]




TO THE LAST PENNY




CHAPTER I

THOMAS LEIGH, ex-boy, considered the dozen neckties before him a long
time, and finally decided to wait until after breakfast.

It was his second day at home and his third day out of college. Already
his undergraduate life seemed far away. His triumphs--of personality
rather than of scholarship--lingered as a luminous mist that softened
the sterner realities and mellowed them goldenly. When one is young
reminiscences of one's youth are apt to take on a tinge of melancholy,
but Tommy, not having breakfasted, shook off the mood determinedly. He
was two hundred and fifty-five months old; therefore, he decided that no
great man ever crosses a bridge until he comes to it. Tommy's bridge
was still one long joy-ride ahead. The sign, “Slow down to four miles an
hour!” was not yet in sight. The selection of the necktie was a serious
matter because he was to lunch at Sherry's with the one sister and the
younger of the two cousins of Rivington Willetts.

In the mean time he had an invitation to spend the first half of July
with Bull Wilson's folks at Gloucester, a week with “Van” Van Schaick
for the cruise at Newport, as long as he wished with Jimmy Maitland at
Mr. Maitland's camp in the Adirondacks, and he had given a half promise
to accompany Ellis Gladwin to Labrador for big game in the fall.

He suddenly remembered that he was at his last ten-spot. There was the
Old Man to touch for fifty bucks. And also--sometime--he must have a
heart-to-heart talk of a business nature about his allowance. He and
his friends desired to take a post-graduate course. They proposed to
specialize on New York.

Mr. Leigh always called him Thomas. This had saved Mr. Leigh at least
one thousand dollars a year during Tommy's four at college, by making
Tommy realize that he had no doting father. At times the boy had sent
his requests for an extra fifty with some misgivings--by reason of the
impelling cause of the request--but Mr. Leigh always sent the check for
the exact amount by return mail, and made no direct reference to
it. Instead he permitted himself an irrelevant phrase or two, like,
“Remember, Thomas, that you must have no conditions at the end of the
term.”

Possibly because of a desire to play fair with a