“This is a dangerous proposition, though, J. Rufus,” he objected. “Suppose they actually take this matter up with the state department? Suppose they even go there?”
“Well, they can’t prove any connection between you and me, and you will be out of the road,” said Wallingford. “I don’t mind confessing that it’s nearer an infraction of the law than I like, though, and hereafter I don’t intend to come so close. It isn’t necessary. But in this case there’s nothing to fear. These lead-pipe artists are scared so stiff by their fall-down on the building-loan game that they’ll take their medicine right here and now. They’ll come to me before to-morrow night, now that I’ve got them, to collect their money in a wad in the new company. They might even start work to-night.”
He rose from the table in his private office and went to the door.
“Oh, Billy!” he called.
A sharp-looking young fellow with a pen behind his ear came from the other room.
“Billy, here’s a hundred dollars for you,” said Wallingford.
“Thank you,” said Billy. “Who’s to be thugged?”
“Nobody,” replied Wallingford, laughing. “It’s just a good-will gift. By the way, if Doc Turner or any of that crowd back there makes any advances to you to buy your share of stock, sell it to them, and you’re a rank sucker if you take less than two hundred for it. Also tell them that you can get three other shares from the office force at the same price.”
Billy, with great deliberation, took a pin from the lapel of his coat and pinned his hundred-dollar bill inside his inside vest pocket, then he winked prodigiously, and without another word withdrew.