"I never lose my head! I never lose my nerve!" denied Mr. Lobel. He turned the counter tide of recriminations on Geltfin.
"Anyhow,—it was you started it, Geltfin—you in the first place, right here in this room, with your craziness about the dead coming back. Only for your fool talk I would never have had the idee of a ghost at all. And now—now when the cow is all spilt milk you two come and—"
"Oh, but Lobel," countered Geltfin, "remember you was the one that made 'em burn up the negative without giving it a look at all!"
"He said it, Lobel!" reënforced Quinlan. "You was the one that just would have the negative burned up whether or no. And now it's burned up!"
Mr. Lobel was not used to being bullied in his own office or elsewhere. If there was bullying to be done by anyone, he was his own candidate always. Surcharged with distracting regrets as he was, he had an inspiration. He would turn the flood of accusation away from himself.
"Where is that Josephson?" he whooped. "He is the one actually to blame, not us. Let me get my hands on that Josephson once!"
"You can't!" jeered Quinlan. "He's quit—he's gone—he's beat it! He wrote me a note, though, and mailed it back to me when he was beating it out of town, telling me to tell you how slick he'd worked it on you." He felt in his pockets. "I got that note here somewhere—here it is. I'll read it to you, Lobel—he calls you an old scoundrel in one place and an old sucker in another."
"Look out—catch him, Quinlan!" cried Mr. Geltfin. "Look at his face—he's fixing to faint or something."
The prime intent of this recital, as set forth at the beginning, was to tell why Mr. Max Lobel had an attack of apoplexy. That original purpose having been now carried out, there remains nothing more to be added and the chapter ends.