Page:Scribners Magazine volume 27.djvu/261

 public record of your perfidy, and in your speech to-day you furnished it. But we are arranging our books now, and we need that money to make the cash balance."

Wharton started to speak, but Williams's soft velvety voice went on: "I beg pardon—but as I was about to say, what I want to-night is to know whether you will give us a check, or"—he smiled pleasantly and added: "Will you send us the key to your safety deposit box?"

Wharton's face blanched a little. His voice did not rise to the oratorical pitch of his opening challenge as he replied:

"Mr. Williams, this is what I call a dishonorable trick. I have always conidered you a gentleman before now." Williams did not reply. "Yes, sir," continued Wharton; "I always thought you was a man of honor, but I find you're a dirty, contemptible little pup, and I'll see you before I 'll give you any $7 5,000."

Williams looked up quickly and caught Wharton's eye, which dropped. "Is that final?" snapped Williams like the click of a trigger. Wharton gazed at Williams for a moment before replying. Wharton took off his coat and vest, with a mumbled apology about the heat. He paced the floor, occasionally running his fingers through his hair. A slump of all his powers was upon him. He answered:

"I just don't see how I can. I invested every dollar I had to-day in a little scheme, and I'm in the red at the bank clear up to the limit now."

"Give me your note then, sir," returned Williams. Wharton saw that he must gain time and said: "Lookee here, let's settle this thing up in the morning. We're both excited now, and we better cool off."

Williams shook his head and Wharton asked, "Why not?" Williams spoke:

"Senator Wharton, there must be a definite settlement of this thing right now. The Post wants an interview with me about this matter, and I am to answer them to-night at eleven o'clock. If the books don't balance then, I shall explain why they don't balance." He tore a sheet of paper from a pad upon which he was writing and said to Wharton:

"There's the note."

Wharton hesitated and still playing a game for time replied, sulkily:

"Gimme your pen."

When Wharton had signed the note, Williams explained: "You need not send your collateral over until to-morrow, but we shall insist upon it then as a matter of form." Wharton's mind reverted to the school bonds as a help in last resort. He assented tacitly and rose to go. As he put on his vest Williams exclaimed: "Hold on, Senator," and addressed a servant who entered, "Show Senator Felt in now, John."

Wharton's anger returned with a rush. He started for the door, crying, "I'm not in on any of your private theatricals." But Felt in the doorway blocked the passage. Felt was tall. His closely cropped beard and glinting nose-glasses gave him a hard, metallic guise, and his unyielding monotonous voice carried on the similitude. He faced Wharton, who was coatless, flushed, and glistening with perspiration, and the two men surveyed one another as pugilists in the ring. Wharton burst out first:

"Aw, you long-nosed, canting hypocrite! So you ain't above a little blackmailing trick yourself." Felt removed his glasses and wiped them, looking fairly at Wharton, who bawled on: "This is your size! Just about your size! To get a man in a rat-trap and then bleed him. Oh, you, cowardly, psalm-singing cur! You're in on the rake off, are you? How much do you want?"

Felt put on his glasses, lighted a match for his cigar on his shoe-sole, and smiled, showing a set of beautiful white teeth of unusual size. When Wharton lost breath and finished, Felt spoke to Williams gayly:

"The Senator's vocabulary seems to be well spiced up this evening—at any rate." Felt's rasping little laugh cut the thread of the sentence. "Plenty of condiment, as my grandmother used to say of the pudding."

Wharton had regained his breath and said, as he grunted into his coat: "Now what in the devil are you doing here, anyhow!"

Felt seemed to pull himself together. The smile died out of his face in a flash. His jaw began to chop out the words—not loudly, but with remarkable precision, as his eyes through his glasses appeared to flick the blood from the purpling face of Wharton: