While they waited, the stock swayed up and down by fractions, and their covering was not made at one point, but between 39-1/2 and 44-1/2. Dixon calculated the commissions, and wrote the check. It came to twelve thousand five hundred and twenty-seven dollars—just enough to cover his losses in Automotive Fuel, Lang reflected.
The sunlight and air seemed strange after those smoky, excited rooms. Lang felt slightly dizzy and drunk, and remembered that he had eaten nothing since before dawn. The bank where he had his small deposit was only a block away, and they went there at once, while he wondered uneasily as to the next development. Carroll assuredly expected the money to be divided; and, slight as his own rights in it might be, Lang was perfectly convinced that Carroll had none at all.
The check was made out to them jointly, and they both indorsed it. Lang presented it to the cashier, who knew him, and who made no difficulty. The money was counted out in hundred-dollar bills, a hundred and twenty-five of them, with the twenty-seven dollars odd.
Lang separated the five hundred and twenty-seven dollars from the rest. It did seem that they deserved as much as that by way of commission. Carroll clung to his shoulder as he moved from the wicket, his eyes on the money. Lang handed him half the share he had separated, which Carroll took, looking puzzled.
“We’d better not split it here,” he murmured. “Let’s go to your hotel, or somewhere.”
Lang stowed the rest of the money in his inner pocket.
“Look here, Carroll,” he said, “this money isn’t ours, you know. We can’t split it. I’m going to turn it all in to Rockett’s receivers, all but the odd sum, which perhaps we might stretch a point and hold out.”
“Are you joking—or crazy?” exclaimed Carroll, looking absolutely dumfounded.
“Neither. I’m sane and serious. We can’t keep this money. I’m going to put it in safe-keeping till I find out where I ought to deliver it.”
Carroll’s handsome face turned ugly.