More than ever

Paul's mother earns a little by drawing fashion pictures for advertisements, but it brings her only a few hundred pounds, and she is unhappy with it.

On her birthday, she reads the lawyer's letter, telling her of the gift, with a cold, hard face, and hides it. Then she goes to the lawyer and asks for the whole five thousand at once, because she is in debt.

Paul agrees, though Uncle Oscar warns him with the old proverb about 'a bird in the hand'.

The money arrives, and with it come new furniture, flowers, a tutor for Paul, and plans to send him to Eton, an expensive school. But the house does not grow quiet. Instead, its voices scream: 'There must be more money! More than ever! More than ever!'

Now Paul's luck fails him. He loses on the Grand National, and on the Lincoln. He becomes wild-eyed and desperate to know the winner of the Derby. His mother, who comes from a gambling family herself, grows anxious about him.

Greed is never satisfied: more money has only made the whisper louder.