Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 106: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

him to listen to anything like reason. He’s not like the rest of them; I think he’d almost prefer a fight in open court. But ’m nota court lawyer; I’m an office lawyer. “T told him your ultimatum; that you must have that fifteen hundred at once, and ~ you’d do what you could, with thin nails, to take the squeak out of those floors.” He picked up a bit of tinted. paper from his desk. “The best he’d do,” he concluded re- luctantly, “‘ was to make out this: check for thirteen hundred dollars, in my charge, and to. leave word you could take it, and let the floors go as they are, or sue him, as you liked.” A moment’s silence ensued. Weeks stood frowning thoughtfully. while Todd sat ner- vously fingering the check.. “Beats all what’s got. into this. town,” finally muttered Weeks. “ Till this summer every one got along with every one else. Now they’re crowdin’ the waitin’ list to take a. shot at me.” “Did you ever think they might be jealous?” tentatively suggested Todd. ‘You're doing the biggest business in town, you. know.” “Jealous of me?” jeered the heckled contractor. ‘‘ Well, they needn’t be. I’ve just. handled the money, that’s all. With these adjustments, my profit an’ loss. column is plumb under water. All I’ve had this summer is the exercise.’ He pondered a little longer, while Todd waited hopefully. “T won’t resk a lawsuit,” grimly decided the contractor at last. “ I might have guar- anteed them floors not to yodle— not thinkin’, an’ not knowin’ much about ’em anyway—and, anyway, his wife was there. She’d swear to anything for a-penny. Give me the $1,300 check—an’ how muclz do | owe you?”’ Evan strove to exclude undue exaltation from his tone: “Oh,” he replied magnanimously, “I stick to the ten per cent, and not on the fifteen hundred figure, but the: thirteen hun- dred. One hundred and thirty. dollars will square us.” For an instant Weeks looked at him hard. He contrived to return the regard with an. assumption of imperturbability. “T ain’t got that much: by me in cash,” Silas finally told him dryly. “ Push me over a blank check on the bank.” Todd complied with alacrity, and his proffer. of pen and ink was anticipated by the flashing of Silas’s. fountain: pen. Paying no heed to his somewhat rambling comments, Weeks stolidly walked out. Evan was vaguely disturbed by his manner. Had he overreached himself this time? This single and well-paying client of his should. be nursed: along. That was how cunning old Hamnibal Hoyt, of Bucephalus, nursed /s clients. Evan would have been more seriously disturbed if he had known that the rear door of his. office, opening into the living- room, was ajar during his colloquy with Weeks, and that behind it was the glower- ing face of his: roomer and boarder in so far as they divided the expense of the table, Walter Sims. Sims: was leaving in two days for some city in the West. that he had not named. Palmyrus contained’ no: better-known: young man, nor more of a “ gadder,” as the old ladies called him. Walter was socially in- clined, and he knew everybody and every- body’s: business. Still more deeply would Evan Todd have been disturbed that evening if — when strolling in the moonlight—he had known that Sims was pawing through his desk, which he had carelessly left unlocked, and finding certain memoranda that told him a story of double-dealing. He lifted at last a wizen face contorted with fury and cold malice. In a whisper of fierceness: he cursed the absent Todd. “Why, you ferret-faced,. gooseberry-eyed, double-crossing son of a thief! You will, will you? I won’t bone yow for the deficit, you poor ape; Ili leave you something when I’m gone to remember me by!” IV. A MASTER of dissimulation, Walter Sims did not reveal to Evan Todd, when he left him to go to the train, that his tolerance of the other had turned to hate. He parted with the lawyer, assuming cordiality. He took a green,. twisted something that Evan pressed into his hand without question, or €omicbooks.com — if te ae