Page:On to Pekin.djvu/195

Rh "Ramsey Polk. He told me I had better sell out."

"According to my notion, he has misinformed you; and the company is in a highly prosperous condition."

"So I have already learned through a lawyer I hired to investigate. Is this what you wish to see me about?"

"I wanted to see you about the claim my father had on the company at the time of his death. If you will remember, my mother got only about two thousand dollars—"

"But Ramsey Polk paid her twenty-six thousand dollars later on," interposed the old tea-merchant.

"Twenty-six thousand dollars! He didn't pay her a cent more than the law compelled him to pay."

"But he wrote to me that he had paid it to her," insisted Amos Bartlett.

"Then he wrote that which was not true. Did you know that there was twenty-six thousand dollars coming to her?"

"I did. Your father turned over the certificates of stock to Polk just before he died. I wrote to Polk about it, and he wrote back as I have told you.