and what she ought to do with it. The next best thing to having money of one's own, is to dictate the spending of somebody else's, and Sally's guests were finding a good deal of satisfaction in arranging a Budget for her. Rumour having put the sum at their disposal at a high figure, their suggestions had certain spaciousness.
“Let me tell you,” said Augustus Bartlett, briskly, “what I'd do, if I were you.” Augustus Bartlett, who occupied an intensely subordinate position in the firm of Kahn, Morris and Brown, the Wall Street brokers, always affected a brisk, incisive style of speech, as befitted a man in close touch with the great ones of Finance. “I'd sink a couple of hundred thousand in some good, safe bond-issue—we've just put one out which you would do well to consider—and play about with the rest. When I say play about, I mean have a flutter in anything good that crops up. Multiple Steel's worth looking at. They tell me it'll be up to a hundred and fifty before next Saturday.”
Elsa Doland, the pretty girl with the big eyes who sat on Mr. Bartlett's left, had other views.
“Buy a theatre, Sally, and put on good stuff.”
“And lose every bean you've got,” said a mild young man, with a deep voice across the table. “If I had a few hundred thousand,” said the mild young man, “I'd put every cent of it on Benny Whistler for the heavyweight championship. I've private information that Battling Tuke has been got at and means to lie down in the seventh...”
“Say, listen,” interrupted another voice, “lemme tell you what I'd do with four hundred thousand...”
“If I had four hundred thousand,” said Elsa Doland, “I know what would be the first thing I'd do.”
“What's that?” asked Sally.
“Pay my bill for last week, due this morning.”
Sally got up quickly, and flitting down the table, put her arm round her friend's shoulder and whispered in her ear:
“Elsa darling, are you really broke? If you are, you know, I'll...”
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