Part 16 (2/2)

So it was out! ”Some truth,” I admitted, since denial would have been useless here. ”And I've come to you for the money to tide me over.”

He grew white, a sickly white, and into his eyes came a horrible, drowning look.

”I owe a lot to you, Matt,” he pleaded. ”But I've done you a great many favors, haven't I?”

”That you have Bob,” I cordially agreed. ”But this isn't a favor. It's business.”

”You mustn't ask it, Blacklock,” he cried. ”I've loaned you more money now than the law allows. And I can't let you have any more.”

”Some one has been lying to you, and you've been believing him,” said I.

”When I say my request isn't a favor, but business, I mean it.”

”I can't let you have any more,” he repeated. ”I can't!” And down came his fist in a weak-violent gesture.

I leaned forward and laid my hand strongly on his arm.

”In addition to the stock of this concern that I hold in my own name,” said I, ”I hold five shares in the name of a man whom n.o.body knows that I even know. If you don't let me have the money, that man goes to the district attorney with information that lands you in the penitentiary, that puts your company out of business and into bankruptcy before to-morrow noon.

I saved you three years ago, and got you this job against just such an emergency as this, Bob Corey. And, by G.o.d, you'll toe the mark!”

”But we haven't done anything that every bank in town doesn't do every day--doesn't have to do. If we didn't lend money to dummy borrowers and over-certify accounts, our customers would go where they could get accommodations.”

”That's true enough,” said I. ”But I'm in a position for the moment where I need my friends--and they've got to come to time. If I don't get the money from you, I'll get it elsewhere--but over the cliff with you and your bank! The laws you've been violating may be bad for the practical banking business, but they're mighty good for punis.h.i.+ng ingrat.i.tude and treachery.”

He sat there, yellow and pinched, and s.h.i.+vering every now and then. He made no reply. He was one of those sh.e.l.ls of men that are conspicuous as figureheads in every department of active life--fellows with well-shaped, white-haired or prematurely bald heads, and grave, respectable faces; they look dignified and substantial, and the soul of uprightness; they coin their looks into good salaries by selling themselves as covers for operations of the financiers. And how those operations, in the nude, as it were, would terrify the plodders that save up and deposit or invest the money the financiers gamble with on the big green tables!

Presently I shook his arm impatiently. His eyes met mine, and I fixed them.

”I'm going to pull through,” said I. ”But if I weren't, I'd see to it that you were protected. Come, what's your answer? Friend or traitor?”

”Can't you give me any security--any collateral?”

”No more than I took from you when I saved you as you were going down with the rest in the Dumont smash. My word--that's all. I borrow on the same terms you've given me before, the same you're giving four of your heaviest borrowers right now.”

He winced as I thus reminded him how minute my knowledge was of the workings of his bank.

”I didn't think this of you, Matt,” he whined. ”I believed you above such hold-up methods.”

”I suit my methods to the men I'm dealing with,” was my answer. ”These fellows are trying to push me off the life raft. I fight with every weapon I can lay hands on. And I know as well as you do that, if you get into serious trouble through this loan, at least five men we could both name would have to step in and save the bank and cover up the scandal. You'll blackmail them, just as you've blackmailed them before, and they you.

Blackmail's a legitimate part of the game. n.o.body appreciates that better than you.” It was no time for the smug hypocrisies under which we people down town usually conduct our business--just as the desperadoes used to patrol the highways disguised as peaceful merchants.

”Send round in the morning and get the money,” said he, putting on a resigned, hopeless look.

I laughed. ”I'll feel easier if I take it now,” I replied. ”We'll fix up the notes and checks at once.”

He reddened, but after a brief hesitation busied himself. When the papers were all made up and signed, and I had the certified checks in my pocket, I said: ”Wait here, Bob, until the National Industrial people call you up. I'll ask them to do it, so they can get your personal a.s.surance that everything's all right. And I'll stop there until they tell me they've talked with you.”

”But it's too late,” he said. ”You can't deposit to-day.”

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