"Well," replied Mr. Banks, "I'm sorry; but there isn't a thing in the office I can give you." He pondered a minute. "I've got a lot of old judgments against a fellow named Rosenheim—in the cigar business, but he's no good—judgment proof—and they aren't worth the paper they're written on."
"Give them to me!" almost shouted Peters.
Mr. Banks laughed.
"You can have ninety per cent. of all you collect," said he as he bent over and, pulling out a lower drawer, removed a bundle of soiled documents. "Here they are. My blessing to you!"
Peters grabbed the transcripts and staggered down the stairs. It took him less than ten minutes to find Mr. Simon Rosenheim, who was sitting inside a brass fence at a mahogany desk, smoking one of the best of his own cigars.
"Mr. Rosenheim," said Peters, "I have some judgments here against you, amounting to about three thousand dollars."
"Yes?" remarked Rosenheim politely.
"Can you let me have the money?" inquired Peters.
"My dear fellow," retorted Rosenheim, with an oily sneer, "I owe the money all right, but I don't own a thing in the world. Everything in this room belongs to my wife. The amount of money I owe is really something shocking. Even what is in the safe"—he nodded to a large affair on the other side of the room—"belongs to somebody else."
Rosenheim had been through this same performance hundreds of times before, but not with the same dénouement.