It was not so much experience as a natural trend of mind paralleling Mr. Daw’s which made Mr. Wix smile to himself all through this recital. He seemed to foresee each step in the plan before it was told him, and, when Mr. Gilman was through, the only point about which his friend was at all surprised, or even eager, was the matter of the three thousand.
“Do you mean to say you can swing that amount?” he demanded.
“I—I think I can,” faltered Mr. Gilman. “In fact, I—I’m very sure of it. Although, of course, that’s a secret,” he hastily added.
“Where would you get it?” asked Wix incredulously.
“Well, for a sure thing like this, if you must know,” said Gilman, gulping, but speaking with desperately businesslike decision, “I am sure Mr. Smalley would loan it to me. Although he wouldn’t want it known,” he again added quickly. “If you’d speak to him about it he’d deny it, and might even make me trouble for being so loose-tongued; so, of course, nobody must know.”
“I see,” said Wix slowly. “Well, Cliff, you just pass up this tidy little fortune.”
“Pass it up!”
“Yes, let it slide on by. Look on it with scorn. Wriggle your fingers at it. Let somebody else have that nine thousand dollars clean profit from the investment of three, all in a couple of days. I’m afraid it would give you the short-haired paleness to make so much money so suddenly. Ever hear of that disease? The short-haired paleness comes from wearing horizontal stripes in a cement room.”
For a moment young Gilman pondered this ambiguous reply in silence, then out of his secret distress he blurted: