Kitabı oku: «Young Wallingford», sayfa 6
CHAPTER XI
WHEREIN BLACKIE DAW PLAYS A BRIEF CHARACTER BIT
Andy Grout came into Doc Turner’s office in a troubled mood, every down-drooping line in his acid countenance absolutely vertical.
“We’ve made a mistake,” he squeaked. “This young Wallingford is a hustler, and he’s doing some canvassing himself. In the past week he’s taken at least forty members for his loan company, and every man Jack of them are old members of ours.”
Doc Turner began rubbing his frosted hands together at a furious rate.
“Squinch has sold us out!” he charged. “He’s let Wallingford copy that list on the sly!”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Grout, more lugubrious than ever. “I made some inquiries. You know, a lot of these fellows are customers of mine, and I find that he just happened to land on some of them in the first place. One recommends him to the others, just as we got them. If we don’t sell him that list right away he won’t need it.”
Together they went to Squinch and explained the matter, very much to that gentleman’s discomfiture and even agitation.
“What’s his plan of operation, anyhow?” complained Squinch.
“I don’t understand it,” returned Andy. “I found out this much, though: the members all expect to get rich as soon as the company starts operating.”
Mr. Squinch pounded his long finger-tips together for some time while he pondered the matter.
“It might be worth while to have a share or two of stock in his company, merely to find out his complete plan,” he sagely concluded. “If he’s getting members that easy it’s quite evident there is some good money to be made on the inside.”
This was the unanimous opinion of the entire five members of the board of directors, and as each member was in positive pain on the subject of “good money on the inside,” they called a meeting that very afternoon in Mr. Squinch’s office, inviting Mr. Wallingford to attend, which he did with inward alacrity but outward indifference.
“Mr. Wallingford,” said Mr. Squinch, “we have about decided to accept your offer for our list, but before doing so we will have to ask you to explain to us the organization of your company.”
“Very simple,” Wallingford told them cheerfully. “It’s incorporated for a hundred thousand dollars; a thousand shares of a hundred dollars each.”
“All paid in?” Mr. Squinch wanted to know.
“All paid in,” replied Mr. Wallingford calmly.
“Indeed!” commented Mr. Squinch. “Who owns the stock?”
“My four office assistants own one share each and I own the balance.”
A smile pervaded the faces of all but one of the members of the board of directors of the defunct National Building and Loan Association. Even Tom Fester’s immovable countenance presented a curiously strained appearance. Strange as it may seem, the dummy-director idea was no novelty in New Jersey.
“I take it, then, that the paid-in capitalization of the company is not represented in actual cash,” said Mr. Squinch.
“No,” admitted Wallingford cheerfully. “As a matter of fact, at our first meeting the directors paid me ninety-five thousand dollars for my plan of operation.”
Again broad smiles illuminated the faces of the four, and this time Tom Fester actually accomplished a smile himself, though the graining might be eternally warped.
“Then you started in business,” sagely deduced Mr. Squinch, with the joined finger-tip attitude of a triumphant cross-examiner, “having but a total cash capitalization of five thousand dollars.”
“Exactly,” admitted Wallingford, chuckling. There was no reservation whatever about Mr. Wallingford. He seemed to regard the matter as a very fair joke.
“You are a very bright young man,” Mr. Squinch complimented him, and that opinion was reflected in the faces of the others. “And what is your plan of loans, Mr. Wallingford?”
“Also very simple,” replied the bright young man. “The members are in loan groups, corresponding to the lodges of secret societies, and, in fact, their meetings are secret meetings. Each member pays in a dollar and a quarter a week, and the quarter goes into the expense fund.”
The five individually and collectively nodded their heads.
“Expense fund,” interpolated Doc Turner, his blue-tipped nose wrinkling with the enjoyment transmitted from his whetting palms, “meaning yourself.”
“Exactly,” agreed Wallingford. “The dollar per week goes into the loan fund, but at the start there will be no loans made until there is a thousand dollars in the fund. Ten per cent. of this will be taken out for loan investigations and the payment of loan officers.”
“Meaning, again, yourself,” squeaked Andy Grout, his vertical lines making obtuse bends.
“Exactly,” again agreed Wallingford. “Twenty-five per cent. goes to the grand annual loan, and the balance will be distributed in loans as follows: One loan of two hundred and fifty dollars, one loan of one hundred, one of fifty, four of twenty-five and fifteen of ten dollars each. These loans will be granted without other security than an unindorsed note of hand, payable in four years, without interest, and the loans will be made at the discretion of the loan committee, meeting in secret session.”
Mr. Squinch drew a long breath.
“A lottery!” he exclaimed.
“Hush!” said J. Rufus, chuckling. “Impossible. Every man gets his money back. Each member takes out a bond which matures in about four years, if he keeps up his steady payments of a dollar and a quarter a week without lapsation beyond four weeks, which four weeks may be made up on additional payment of a fine of twenty-five cents for each delinquent week, all fines, of course, going into the expense fund.”
Doc Turner’s palms were by this time quite red from the friction.
“And how, may I ask, are these bonds to be redeemed?” asked Mr. Squinch severely.
“In their numbered order,” announced Mr. Wallingford calmly, “from returned loans. When bond number one, for instance, is fully paid up, its face value will be two hundred and fifty dollars. If there is two hundred and fifty dollars in the redemption fund at that time – which the company, upon the face of the bonds, definitely refuses to guarantee, not being responsible for the honesty of its bond-holders – bond number one gets paid; if not, bond number one waits until sufficient money has been returned to the fund, and number two – or number five, say, if two, three and four have lapsed – waits its redemption until number one has been paid.”
A long and simultaneous sigh from five breasts attested the appreciation of his auditors for Mr. Wallingford’s beautiful plan of operation.
“No,” announced Mr. Squinch, placing his finger-tips ecstatically together, “your plan is not a lottery.”
“Not by any means,” agreed Doc Turner, rubbing his palms.
Jim Christmas, who never committed himself orally if he could help it, now chuckled thickly in his throat, and the scarlet network upon his face turned crimson.
“I think, Mr. Wallingford,” said Mr. Squinch, “I think that we will accept your offer of two shares of stock each for our list.”
Mr. Wallingford, having succeeded in giving these gentlemen a grasping personal interest in his profits, diplomatically withheld his smile for a private moment, and, turning over to each of the five gentlemen two shares of his own stock in the company, accepted the list. Afterward, in entering the item in his books, he purchased for the company, from himself, ten shares of stock for one thousand dollars, paying himself the cash, and charged the issue of stock to the expense fund. Then he sat back and waited for the next move.
It could not but strike such closely calculating gentlemen as the new members that here was a concern in which they ought to have more than a paltry two shares each of stock. Each gentleman, exercising his rights as a stock-holder, had insisted on poring carefully over the constitution and by-laws, the charter, the “bonds,” and all the other forms and papers. Each, again in his capacity of stock-holder, had kept careful track of the progress of the business, of the agents that were presently put out, and of the long list of names rapidly piling up in the card-index; and each made hints to J. Rufus about the purchase of additional stock, becoming regretful, however, when they found that the shares were held strictly at par.
In this triumphant period Wallingford was aggravatingly jovial, even exasperating, in the crowing tone he took.
“How are we getting along? Fine!” he declared to each stock-holder in turn. “Inside of six months we’ll have a membership of ten thousand!” And they were forced to believe him.
Probably none of the ex-members of the defunct loan association was so annoyed over the condition of affairs as Ebenezer Squinch, nor so nervously interested.
“I thought you intended to begin collecting your weekly payments when you had two hundred and fifty members,” he protested to Wallingford, “but you have close to five hundred now.”
“That’s just the point,” explained Wallingford. “I’m doing so much better than I thought that I don’t intend to start the collections until I have a full thousand, which will let me have four thousand in the very first loan fund, making two hundred and fifty a week to the expense fund and a hundred a week for the loan committee, besides one thousand dollars toward the grand annual distribution. That will give me twenty-six hundred to be divided in one loan of a thousand, one of five hundred, one of two hundred and fifty, two of a hundred, four of fifty, ten of twenty-five, and twenty of ten dollars each; a grand distribution of thirty-nine loans in all. That keeps it from being a piker bet; and think what the first distribution and every distribution will do toward getting future membership! And they’ll grow larger every month. I don’t think it’ll take me all that six months to get my ten thousand members.”
Mr. Squinch, over his tightly pressed finger-tips, did a little rapid figuring. A membership of ten thousand would make a total income for the office, counting expense fund and loan committee fund, of three thousand five hundred per week, steadily, week in and week out, with endless possibilities of increase.
“And what did you say you would take for a half interest?” he asked.
“I didn’t say,” returned Wallingford, chuckling, “because I wouldn’t sell a half interest under any consideration. I don’t mind confessing to you, though, that I do need some money at once, so much so that I would part with four hundred and ninety-nine shares, right now, and for spot cash, for a lump sum of twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“Bound to keep control himself,” Mr. Squinch reported to his confrères, after having reluctantly confessed to himself that he could not take care of the proposition alone. “I don’t blame him so much, either, for he’s got a vast money-maker.”
“Money without end,” complained Andy Grout, his mouth stretching sourly down to the shape of a narrow croquet wicket; “and the longer we stay out of this thing the more money we’re losing. It’s better than any building-loan.”
There was a curious hesitation in Andy Grout’s voice as he spoke of the building-loan, for he had been heartbroken that they had been compelled to give up this lucrative business, and he was not over it yet.
Doc Turner rubbed his perpetually lifeless hands together quite slowly.
“I don’t know whether we’re losing money or not,” he interjected. “There is no question but that Wallingford will make it, but I suppose you know why he won’t sell a half interest.”
“So he won’t lose control,” said Squinch, impatient that of so obvious a fact any explanation should be required.
“But why does he want to keep control?” persisted Doc Turner. “Why, so he can vote himself a big salary as manager. No matter how much he made we’d get practically no dividends.”
It was shrewd Andy Grout whose high squeak broke the long silence following this palpable fact.
“It seems to me we’re a lot of plumb idiots, anyhow,” he shrilled. “He wants twenty-five thousand for less than fifty per cent. of the stock. That’s five thousand apiece for us. I move we put in the five thousand dollars apiece, but start a company of our own.”
Mr. Grout’s suggestion was a revelation which saved Jim Christmas from bursting one of his red veins in baffled cupidity. Negotiations with Mr. Wallingford for any part of his stock suddenly ceased. Instead, within a very short time there appeared upon the door of the only vacant office left in the Turner block, the sign: “The People’s Coöperative Bond and Loan Company.”
Mr. Wallingford did not seem to be in the slightest degree put out by the competition. In fact, he was most friendly with the new concern, and offered Doc Turner, who had been nominated manager of the new company, his assistance in arranging his card-index system, or upon any other point upon which he might need help.
“There’s room enough for all of us,” he said cheerfully. “Of course, I think you fellows ought to pay me a royalty for using my plan, but there’s no way for me to compel you to do it. There’s one thing we ought to do, however, and that is to take steps to prevent a lot of other companies from jumping in and spoiling our field. I think I’ll get right after that myself. I have a pretty strong pull in the state department.”
They were holding this conversation three days after the sign went up, and Mr. Squinch, entering the office briskly to report a new agent that he had secured, frowned at finding Mr. Wallingford there. Business was business with Mr. Squinch, and social calls should be discouraged. Before he could frame his objection in words, however, another man entered the office, a stranger, a black-haired, black-eyed, black-mustached young man, of quite ministerial appearance indeed, as to mere clothing, who introduced himself to Doc Turner as one Mr. Clifford, and laid down before that gentleman a neatly folded parchment, at the same time displaying a beautiful little gold-plated badge.
“I am the state inspector of corporations,” said Mr. Clifford, “and this paper contains my credentials. I have come to inspect your plan of operation, and to examine all printed forms, books and minutes.”
Mr. Wallingford rose to go, but a very natural curiosity apparently led him to remain standing, while Doc Turner, with a troubled glance at Ebenezer Squinch, rose to collect samples of all the company’s printed forms for the representative of the law.
Mr. Wallingford sat down again.
“I might just as well stay,” he observed to Doc Turner, “because my interests are the same as yours.”
Mr. Clifford looked up at him with a very sharp glance, as both Mr. Turner and Mr. Squinch took note. At once, however, Mr. Clifford went to work. In a remarkably short space of time, seeming, indeed, to have known just where to look for the flaw, he pointed out a phrase in the “bond,” the phrase pertaining to the plan of redemption.
“Gentlemen,” said he gravely, “I am very sorry to say that the state department can not permit you to do business with this bond, and that any attempt to do so will result in the revoking of your charter. I note that this is bond number one, and assume from this fact that you have not yet sold any of them. You are very lucky indeed not to have done so.”
A total paralysis settled upon Messrs. Turner and Squinch, a paralysis which was only relieved by the counter-irritant of Wallingford’s presence. To him Mr. Squinch made his first observation, and it was almost with a snarl.
“Seems to me this rather puts a spoke in your wheel, too, Wallingford,” he observed.
“Is this Mr. Wallingford?” asked Mr. Clifford, suddenly rising with a cordial smile. “I am very glad indeed to meet you, Mr. Wallingford,” he said as he shook hands with that gentleman. “They told me about you at the state department. As soon as I’ve finished here I’ll drop in to look at your papers, just as a matter of form, you know.”
“If you refuse to let us operate,” interposed Mr. Squinch in his most severely legal tone, “you will be compelled to refuse Mr. Wallingford permission to operate also!”
“I am not so sure about that,” replied Mr. Clifford suavely. “The slightest variation in forms of this sort can sometimes make a very great difference, and I have no doubt that I shall find such a divergence; no doubt whatever! By the way, Wallingford,” he said, turning again to that highly pleased gentleman, “Jerrold sent his respects to you. He was telling me a good story about you that I’ll have to go over with you by and by. I want you to take dinner with me to-night, anyhow.”
Jerrold was the state auditor.
“I shall be very much pleased,” said Wallingford. “I’ll just drop into the office and get my papers laid out for you.”
“All right,” agreed Mr. Clifford carelessly. “I don’t want to spend much time over them.”
Other fatal flaws Mr. Clifford found in the Turner and Company plan of operation, and when he left the office of The People’s Coöperative Bond and Loan Company, the gentlemen present representing that concern felt dismally sure that their doom was sealed.
“We’re up against a pull again,” said Doc Turner despondently. “It’s the building-loan company experience all over again. You can’t do anything any more in this country without a pull.”
“And it won’t do any good for us to go up to Trenton and try to get one,” concluded Mr. Squinch with equal despondency. “We tried that with the building-loan company and failed.”
In the office of The People’s Mutual Bond and Loan Company there was no despondency whatever, for Mr. Wallingford and the dark-haired gentleman who had given his name as Mr. Clifford were shaking hands with much glee.
“They fell for it like kids for a hoky-poky cart, Blackie,” exulted Wallingford. “They’re in there right this minute talking about the cash value of a pull. That was the real ready-money tip of all the information I got from old Colonel Fox.”
They had lit cigars and were still gleeful when a serious thought came to Mr. Clifford, erstwhile Mr. Daw.
“This is a dangerous proposition, though, J. Rufus,” he objected. “Suppose they actually take this matter up with the state department? Suppose they even go there?”
“Well, they can’t prove any connection between you and me, and you will be out of the road,” said Wallingford. “I don’t mind confessing that it’s nearer an infraction of the law than I like, though, and hereafter I don’t intend to come so close. It isn’t necessary. But in this case there’s nothing to fear. These lead-pipe artists are scared so stiff by their fall-down on the building-loan game that they’ll take their medicine right here and now. They’ll come to me before to-morrow night, now that I’ve got them, to collect their money in a wad in the new company. They might even start work to-night.”
He rose from the table in his private office and went to the door.
“Oh, Billy!” he called.
A sharp-looking young fellow with a pen behind his ear came from the other room.
“Billy, here’s a hundred dollars for you,” said Wallingford.
“Thank you,” said Billy. “Who’s to be thugged?”
“Nobody,” replied Wallingford, laughing. “It’s just a good-will gift. By the way, if Doc Turner or any of that crowd back there makes any advances to you to buy your share of stock, sell it to them, and you’re a rank sucker if you take less than two hundred for it. Also tell them that you can get three other shares from the office force at the same price.”
Billy, with great deliberation, took a pin from the lapel of his coat and pinned his hundred-dollar bill inside his inside vest pocket, then he winked prodigiously, and without another word withdrew.
“He’s a smart kid,” said Blackie.
CHAPTER XII
WALLINGFORD IS FROZEN OUT OF THE MANAGEMENT OF HIS OWN COMPANY
In the old game of “pick or poe” one boy held out a pin, concealed between his fingers, and the other boy guessed whether the head or point was toward him. It was a great study in psychology. The boy who held the pin had to do as much guessing as the other one. Having held forward heads the first time, should he reverse the pin the second time, or repeat heads? In so far as one of the two boys correctly gaged the elaborateness of the other’s mental process he was winner. At the age when he played this game Wallingford usually had all the pins in school. Now he was out-guessing the Doc Turner crowd. He had foreseen every step in their mental process; he had foreseen that they would start an opposition company; he had foreseen their extravagant belief in his “pull,” knowing what he did of their previous experience, and he had foreseen that now they would offer to buy up the stock held by his office force, so as to secure control, before opening fresh negotiations for the stock he had offered them.
That very night Doc Turner called at the house of Billy Whipple to ask where he could get a good bird-dog, young Whipple being known as a gifted amateur in dogs. Billy, nothing loath, took Doc out to the kennel, where, by a fortunate coincidence, of which Mr. Turner had known nothing, of course, he happened to have a fine set of puppies. These Mr. Turner admired in a more or less perfunctory fashion.
“By the way, Billy,” he by and by inquired, “how do you like your position?”
“Oh, so-so,” replied Billy. “The job looks good to me. Wallingford has started a very successful business.”
“How much does he pay you?”
Billy reflected. It was easy enough to let a lie slip off his tongue, but Turner had access to the books.
“Twenty-five dollars a week,” he said.
“You owe a lot to Wallingford,” observed Mr. Turner. “It’s the best pay you ever drew.”
“Yes, it is pretty good,” admitted Billy; “but I don’t owe Wallingford any more than I owe myself.”
In the dark Mr. Turner slowly placed his palms together.
“You’re a bright boy,” said Mr. Turner. “Billy, I don’t like to see a stranger come in here and gobble up the community’s money. It ought to stay in the hands of home folks. I’d like to get control of that business. If you’ll sell me your share of stock I might be able to handle it, and if I can I’ll advance your wages to thirty-five dollars a week.”
“You’re a far pleasanter man than Wallingford,” said Billy amiably. “You’re a smarter man, a better man, a handsomer man! When do we start on that thirty-five?”
“Very quickly, Billy, if you feel that way about it.” And the friction of Mr. Turner’s palms was perfectly audible. “Then I can have your share of stock?”
“You most certainly can, and I’ll guarantee to buy up three other shares in the office if you want them.”
“Good!” exclaimed Turner, not having expected to accomplish so much of his object so easily. “The minute you lay me down those four shares I’ll hand you four hundred dollars.”
“Eight,” Billy calmly corrected him. “Those shares are worth a hundred dollars apiece any place now. Mine’s worth more than two hundred to me.”
“Nonsense,” protested the other. “Tell you what I’ll do, though. I’ll pay you two hundred dollars for your share and a hundred dollars apiece for the others.”
“Two,” insisted Billy. “We’ve talked it all over in the office, and we’ve agreed to pool our stock and stand out for two hundred apiece, if anybody wants it. As a matter of fact, I have all four shares in my possession at this moment,” and he displayed the certificates, holding up his lantern so that Turner could see them.
The sight of the actual stock, the three other shares which the astute Billy had secured on the promise of a hundred and fifty dollars per share immediately after Wallingford’s pointer, clenched the business.
It was scarcely as much a shock to Wallingford as the Turner crowd had expected it to be when those gentlemen, having purchased four hundred and ninety-nine shares of Wallingford’s stock at his own price, sat in the new stock-holders’ meeting, at the reorganization upon which they had insisted, with five hundred and three shares, and J. Rufus made but feeble protest when the five of them, voting themselves into the directorate, decided to put the founder of the company on an extremely meager salary as assistant manager, and Mr. Turner on a slightly larger salary as chief manager.
“There’s no use of saying anything,” he concluded philosophically. “You gentlemen have played a very clever game and I lose; that’s all there is to it.”
He thereupon took up the burden of the work and pushed through the matter of new memberships and of collections with a vigor and ability that could not but commend itself to his employers. The second week’s collections were now coming in, and it was during the following week that a large hollow wheel with a handle and crank, mounted on an axle like a patent churn, was brought into the now vacated room of the defunct People’s Coöperative Bond and Loan Company.
“What’s this thing for?” asked Wallingford, inspecting it curiously.
“The drawing,” whispered Doc Turner.
“What drawing?”
“The loans.”
“You don’t mean to say that you’re going to conduct this as a lottery?” protested Wallingford, shocked and even distressed.
“Sh! Don’t use that word,” cautioned Turner. “Not even among ourselves. You might use it in the wrong place some time.”
“Why not use the word?” Wallingford indignantly wanted to know. “That’s what you’re preparing to do! I told you in the first place that this was not by any means to be considered as a lottery; that it was not to have any of the features of a lottery. Moreover, I shall not permit it to be conducted as a lottery!”
Doc Turner leaned against the side of the big wooden wheel and stared at Wallingford in consternation.
“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded. “Have you gone crazy, or what?”
“Sane enough that I don’t intend to be connected with a lottery! I have conscientious scruples about it.”
“May I ask, then, how you propose to decide these so-called loans?” inquired Turner, with palm-rubbing agitation.
“Examine the records of the men who have made application,” explained Wallingford; “find out their respective reputations for honesty, reliability and prompt payment, and place the different loans, according to that information, in as many different towns as possible.”
Doc Turner gazed at him in scorn for a full minute.
“You’re a damned fool!” he declared. “Why, you yourself intended to conduct this as a secret society, and I had intended to have representatives from at least three of the lodges attend each drawing.”
To this Wallingford made no reply, and Turner, to ease his mind, locked the door on the lottery-wheel and went in to open the mail. It always soothed him to take money from envelopes. A great many of the letters pertaining to the business of the company were addressed to Wallingford in person, and Turner slit open all such letters as a matter of course. Half-way down the pile he opened one, addressed to Wallingford, which made him gasp and re-read. The letter read:
Dear Jim:
They have found out your new name and where you are, and unless you get out of town on the first train they’ll arrest you sure. I don’t need to remind you that they don’t hold manslaughter as a light offense in Massachusetts.
Let me know your new name and address as soon as you have got safely away.
Your old pal.
Doc Turner’s own fingers were trembling as he passed this missive to Wallingford, whose expectant eyes had been furtively fixed upon the pile of letters for some time.
“Too bad, old man,” said Turner, tremulously aghast. “Couldn’t help reading it.”
“My God!” exclaimed Wallingford most dramatically. “It has come at last, just as I had settled down to lead a quiet, decent, respectable life, with every prospect in my favor!” He sprang up and looked at his watch. “I’ll have to move on again!” he dismally declared; “and I suppose they’ll chase me from one cover to another until they finally get me; but I’ll never give up! Please see what’s coming to me, Mr. Turner; you have the cash in the house to pay me, I know; and kindly get my stock certificates from the safe.”
Slowly and thoughtfully Turner took from the safe Wallingford’s four hundred and ninety-seven shares of stock, in four certificates of a hundred shares each, one of fifty and one of forty-seven. Wallingford hurried them into an envelope, sitting down to write the address upon it.
“What are you going to do with those?” asked Turner with a thoughtful frown.
“Send them to my friend in Boston and have him sell them for what he can get,” replied Wallingford with a sigh. “If the purchasers send any one here to find out about the business, you’ll, of course, give them every facility for investigation.”
“To be sure; to be sure,” returned Turner. “But, say – ”
He paused a moment, and Wallingford, in the act of writing a hasty note to go with the stock certificates, hesitated, his pen poised just above the paper.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You’ll probably have to sell those shares at a sacrifice, Wallingford.”
“I have no doubt,” he admitted.
Doc Turner’s palms rubbed out a slow decision while Wallingford scratched away at his letter.
“Um-m-m-m-m-m-m – I say!” began Turner gropingly. “Rather than have those shares fall into the hands of strangers we might possibly make you an offer for them ourselves. Wait till I see Squinch.”
He saw Squinch, he saw Tom Fester, he telephoned to Andy Grout, and the four of them gathered in solemn conclave. The consensus of the meeting was that if they could secure Wallingford’s shares at a low enough figure it was a good thing. Not one man among them but had regretted deeply the necessity of sharing any portion of the earnings of the company with Wallingford, or with one another, for that matter. Moreover, new stock-holders might “raise a rumpus” about their methods of conducting the business, as Wallingford had started to do. Gravely they called Wallingford in.
“Wallingford,” said Mr. Squinch, showing in his very tone his disrespect for a criminal, “Mr. Turner has acquainted us with the fact that you are compelled to leave us, and though we already have about as large a burden as we can conveniently carry, we’re willing to allow you five thousand dollars for your stock.”
“For four hundred and ninety-seven shares! Nearly fifty thousand dollars’ worth!” gasped Wallingford, “and worth par!”
