"I'm s-s-sorry," the man was saying at the moment. "I d-d-d-didn't mean—"
Just then Bob slammed the door shut with a bang. The man jumped, and as he turned about came face to face with Miss Berwick, who stood regarding him with a look of scorn.
So startled was the man that his glasses dropped from his nose and he had to grasp a chair to hold himself steady. His face turned a greenish hue and rank fright came into his narrow eyes.
"How do you do, Mr. Cassey?" asked Miss Berwick. "Do you happen to have my mortgage with you?"
"Mr. Cassey?" repeated Mr. Brandon with affected surprise. "He told me his name was Reddy. How about it?" he asked, and his voice had the ring of steel. "Have you been trying to deceive a government officer?"
The detected rascal dropped weakly into the chair whose back he had been holding. He seemed near total collapse.
"Come now," said Mr. Wilson, stepping forward and tapping him on the shoulder, "the game's up, Cassey. We've got you at last. The money or the mortgage, Cassey. Come across with one or the other and come across quick. It's that or jail. Take your choice."
Dan Cassey, shaking in every limb, tried to temporize, and stuttered until he got red in the face and seemed on the point of apoplexy. But the lawyer was inflexible, and at last Cassey took a key from his pocket and opened a drawer from which he took a paper and handed it over to Mr. Wilson. The latter ran his eyes over it and his face lighted up with satisfaction.
"It's the mortgage, all right," he said, as he handed it over to his client. "That settles his account with you, Miss Berwick, and I congratulate you. But it doesn't settle his account with the law. You contemptible scoundrel," he said, addressing Cassey, "you ought to serve a good long term for this."
Cassey, utterly broken, fell on his knees at this and fairly begged for mercy. He stuttered so horribly that the boys would have had to laugh if it had not been for the tragedy of the wretched creature groveling in such abasement.