Part 5 (2/2)
”But I couldn't possibly have my name connected with a matter of this sort,” was Smalley's last citadel of objection.
”Why should you?” agreed Wix, and then a diabolical thought came to him, in the guise of an exquisite joke. He had great difficulty in repressing a chuckle as he suggested it. ”Why not put the stock in Gilman's name?”
”It might be a very bad influence for the young man,” protested Smalley virtuously, but clutching at the suggestion. ”He is thoroughly trustworthy, however, and I suppose I can explain it to him as being a really conservative investment that should have no publicity. I think you said, Mr. Wix, that there are only twenty-five shares remaining to be sold.”
”That's all,” Wix a.s.sured him. ”You couldn't secure another share if you wanted it.”
”Very well, then, I think I shall take it.”
”I have the certificate in my pocket,” said Wix, and he produced the identical certificate that he had offered Gilman some days before. It had already been signed by the complacent Sam Glidden as secretary.
”Make this out to Gilman, shall I?” asked Wix, seating himself at Smalley's desk, and poising his pen above the certificate.
”I believe so,” a.s.sented Smalley, pursing up his lips.
With a smile all of careless pleasure with the world, Wix wrote the name of Clifford M. Gilman, and signed the certificate as president.
”Now, your check, Mr. Smalley, for twenty-five hundred, and the new La Salle Company is completely filled up, ready to start in business on a brand-new basis.”
With his lips still pursed, Smalley made out that check, and Wix shook hands with him most cordially as he left the room. Outside the door he chuckled. He was still smiling when he walked up to the cas.h.i.+er's wicket, where young Gilman sat tense and white-faced. Wix indorsed the check, and handed it through the wicket.
”Here's your twenty-five hundred, Cliff,” said he. ”You can turn it over on the books of the bank as soon as you like.”
Gilman strove to voice his great relief, but his lips quivered and his eyes filled, and he could only turn away speechless. Wix had gone out, and Gilman was still holding in his nerveless fingers the check that had saved him, when Smalley appeared at his side.
”Ah,” said Smalley; ”I see you have the check I gave Mr. Wix. Did he deposit?”
”No, sir,” replied Gilman, in a low voice; ”he took currency.”
Mr. Smalley visibly winced.
”A bill of exchange might have done him just as well,” he protested.
”No non-employing person has need of actual currency in that amount.
I'm afraid young Wix is very extravagant--very. By the way, Mr.
Gilman, I have been forced, for protection and very much against my will, to take some stock in an enterprise with which I can not have my name a.s.sociated for very obvious business reasons; so I have taken the liberty of having the stock made out in your name,” and, before young Gilman's eyes, he spread his twenty-five-share certificate of The La Salle Grain and Stock Brokerage Company.
Gilman, pale before, went suddenly ghastly. The blow of mockery had come too soon upon the heels of his relief.
”I can't have it,” he managed to stammer through parched lips. ”I must refuse, sir. I--I can not be connected in any way with that business, Mr. Smalley. I--I abhor it. Never, as long as I live--”
Suddenly the fish-white face and staring eyes of Gilman were not in the line of Mr. Smalley's astonished vision, for Gilman had slid to the floor, between his high stool and his desk. Sam Glidden, coming into the bank a moment after, found Smalley working feverishly over the prostrate form of his feebly reviving clerk.
CHAPTER V
JONATHAN REUBEN WIX CASTS ASIDE HIS ONLY HANDICAP AND DISAPPEARS FOR EVER
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