Badger gave a cynical laugh.
"You're too late, my friend! I've got a written order—a written order—from your client, as you call her. She can't go back on it now. I've got the bonds and I'm going to dispose of them."
"Very well," said Mr. Tutt tolerantly. "You can do as you see fit. But"—and he produced ten genuine one-thousand-dollar bills and exhibited them to Mr. Badger at a safe distance—"I now on behalf of Mrs. Effingham make you a legal tender of the ten thousand dollars you have just paid out to cancel her note, and I demand the return of the securities. Incidentally I beg to inform you that they are not worth the paper they are printed on."
"Indeed!" sneered Badger. "Well, my dear! old friend, you might have saved yourself the trouble of coming round here. You and your client can go straight to hell. You can keep the money; I'll keep the bonds. See?"
Mr. Tutt sighed and shook his head hopelessly.
Then he put the bills back into his pocket and started slowly for the door.
"You absolutely and finally decline to give up the securities?" he asked plaintively.
"Absolutely and finally?" mocked Mr. Badger with a sweeping bow.
"Dear! Dear!" almost moaned Mr. Tutt. "I'd heard of you a great many times but I never realized before what an unscrupulous man you were! Anyhow, I'm glad to have had a look at you. By the way, if you take the trouble to dig through all that junk you'll find the certificate of stock in the Great Jehoshaphat Oil Company you used to flim flam Mrs. Effingham with out of her ten thousand dollars. Maybe you can use it on someone else! Anyhow, she's about two thousand dollars to the good. It isn't every widow who can get twenty per cent and then get her money back in full."