Only as a last, desperate resource would he lay that fact bare to a man like Arthur Breen, and perhaps not even then.

John Breen's word was, or ought to be, sacred enough on which to borrow ten thousand dollars or any other sum.

That meant a mortgage on his life until every cent was paid.
Do not smile, dear reader.

He is only learning his first lesson in modern finance.

All young men "raised" as Jack had been--and the Scribe is one of them--would have been of the same mind at his age.