Rockwell appeared astounded. His startled eyes traveled to the judge and then returned to the note.
“I—I told Clancy I’d take this up in a week or two,” he muttered shiftily.
“You’re going to take it up now,” said Judge Pembroke. “I know you have the money in the bank, and that note is long past due. Be sure and add the interest when you make out the check.”
“You don’t know about this note, judge,” continued Rockwell. “I don’t reckon I owe the money or——”
“Why did you just say you had told Clancy you’d pay it in a week or two, if you questioned the validity of the note?”
“Well, I—I——”
“Don’t hem and haw and side-step with me,” said the judge sternly. “You have been trying to beat young Clancy out of the money. Do you want me to tell your customers how you hired Hibbard to steal that note from Clancy so you could get out of paying it? Would that sound well?”
Rockwell fell back in his chair, limp and dumfounded. His lips moved, but no sound came from them.
“You see,” pursued the judge relentlessly, “that I know what I am talking about. I’ll publish your contemptible methods far and wide if you don’t instantly settle this debt. I’m not here to waste words on you. Write that check!”
With his face ashen and his hands trembling, Rockwell, thoroughly cowed, bent over his desk. Fishing a check book out of a pigeonhole, he opened it, picked up a pen, and did a little figuring on a scratch block. When he wrote the check, it was for one thousand one hundred and twenty dollars.