“Then, I’ll make it fifty.”
“Fifty!—no, I never said fifty. I said five—too much,” and his fingers began to claw upon the coverlet, while his lips and tongue worked as with a palsy. “Fifty dollars! Do you want to ruin me? Make it five, and I’ll sign it at once. That’s more than I gave you last time.”
She had commenced the check. The date was filled in, and the name of her son as the payee.
“Five, madam—not a penny more. Five!”
The inspiration vibrated in her brain. Why not repeat the successful forgery? He would miss five thousand as little as five.
She wrote “five,” in letters, and lower down filled 74 in the numeral, putting it very near the dollar-sign.
“Father, you are driving me to desperation. It’s your fault if—”
“Give me the pen—give me the pen,” he snarled. “If you keep me waiting too long, I shall change my mind.”
She brought the blotting-pad and pen, and he scrawled his signature, scarcely looking at the check. She drew it away from him swiftly—for she had known him to tear up a check in a last access of covetous greed.
Five thousand dollars!