Ben let out a long breath. Ten galleons was bad, but it wasn't disastrous. Ten galleons wasn't a lark, but it was fixable. The I think tacked onto the end was worse, because if Art wasn't sure then it might have been more. More importantly, if Art had been spiraling so hard lately that he was losing track of how much money he'd lost, it might be more sooner or later. That was something Ben wasn't sure he was equipped to deal with, if Art wasn't — finished with all of this. Neither of them had ever been very good at stopping bad decisions in progress; that was a lot harder than being around to clean up when everything was over and done.

"Ten galleons is okay," he said in a vaguely reassuring tone, though they both knew that okay wasn't the right word. "We can handle that. How — uhm, how... urgent is it?" Ben asked, one eyebrow raised slightly. This wasn't really something he wanted to ask, or force Art to say, but it did matter. If this was the sort of debt that no one had even tried to collect yet, they had a little time to figure things out, move things around. If it was already in the sending goblins after you territory, they might have to get a little more creative. Ben didn't have ten galleons to just hand over, though he would have. He might be able to borrow some, though, because his credit was almost certainly better than Art's, and he might be able to get something from Aldous if he lied about what it was for.