Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/192

 "Just—twenty—thousand—dollars."

Grigsby sank into a chair.

"Borrowed?" asked Jennings.

"Yes."

"Public funds?"

"Well—I don't know. Course—"

"Jim Lockhart didn't have no private fortune—'ithout it 'as the int'rust."

"Well, suppose it was."

"An'thin' to show fer it?"

"I gave him three notes—one for ten, two for five thousand each."

"Well, you're a bigger damn fool than I gave you credit fer bein'."

The attorney-general, clutching his fingers into his hair, rested his elbows on his short knees, and bowed his head. "And with the governorship just in plain sight, too," he groaned.

"Well, it wasn't so damn plain," said Jennings.

Then as his eye rested on the man bowed beside him, the sweat trickling down his tallow face, something in the droop of the figure touched a chord of pity in his heart, and the tall Egyptian laid a hand on Grigsby's shoulder, saying in another tone: