“Why didn’t you bring it with you?”
“Because I walked to save stage fare.”
Rockwell stared, and whistled.
“Your old man must be pretty badly crimped, if you had to do that,” he remarked. “Show up here at eight o’clock. You’ll not be on duty, you understand, except in case you’re needed. You can turn in at eight, or light up and read, or spend your time in the office—please yourself about that. Report to Barton in the morning.”
Clancy went away to find a place where he could get his supper. As he went, he wondered a little why it was necessary for the proprietor of such a prosperous establishment to take so much time getting together a thousand dollars.
“I guess Rockwell’s a bandit, all right,” he muttered, “but I’m going to be on my guard and see that he doesn’t get the better of me. That note is a thing he can’t dodge, and I’m going to keep it right in my hands until he takes it up.”
Clancy found a modest restaurant in Washington Street where the food was good and prices reasonable. Although it was still early in the evening, the electric lights were sparkling up and down the business thoroughfare as he came out of the short-order place.
He felt like a stranger in a strange land, and would have given a good deal for the companionship of Jimmie Fortune just then. Never before had he been so impressed with the responsibilities that had been heaped upon his shoulders, and he was hungry for a little friendly talk—and Fortune was his only friend in that big town.
In better and happier times, the money represented by that note of Rockwell’s would have had small bearing on the fortunes of the Clancys. But now, with his father sick and his financial affairs gone to wreck and ruin, a thousand dollars was a lot of money. Clancy had been told that collecting the amount of that note from Rockwell was a hopeless undertaking, that the garage man would exercise every resource of an unscrupulous nature to get out of paying. So he had been surprised and pleased when promised the money in a week or two.
Perhaps—he told himself—Rockwell wasn’t so bad, after all. He appeared to want to do the square thing, and maybe he was not so prosperous as he seemed, and would have to hustle a little to get the money to take up his note.