"That would make fifteen thousand dollars, in all." Mr. Bascomb finished his remark with a groan.
"Well, what are you howling about?" demanded Evarts unfeelingly. "You've got the money."
"It will lower my holdings in the Melliston Company," complained Mr. Bascomb bitterly "I'm not a rich man, and I haven't any too much stock in the company at the present moment."
"You'd have to sell it all out, if I gave the directors a chance to find out that you're a jailbird—-that you did time as a younger man," sneered Evarts.
"For goodness' sake hold your tongue, man!" gasped Mr. Bascomb in accents of terror.
"Just think," grinned Evarts heartlessly, "how delighted your directors would be to know that you had done time in prison."
"Silence, man!" implored Bascomb. "It wasn't altogether my fault, as you know. And the governor of the state discovered that I wasn't as bad as the jury thought me. It all came through trying to help a worthless friend. Why, man, the governor pardoned me, when I had yet two years to serve and restored me to liberty."
"But you're a jailbird, just the same," jeered the discharged foreman. "Let the directors find that out, and how quickly they'd drop you from your office!"
Mr. Bascomb buried his face in his hands and sobbed aloud.
"So," continued Evarts, "I'll give you forty-eight hours to raise the ten thousand dollars—-in good cash, mind you—-no checks! Then I'll call on you to hand the money over to me. If you don't, I'll write a note to the directors, telling them to look up your name in the court records at Logville, Minnesota. Now, do you understand?"