"It isn't half so important as you think, Mike," said Dick, with a laugh. "And you're attending to some very pressing business right now, too. The most pressing business you ever had in your life is to keep right on walking the way I tell you to and moving as fast as you can, too."
"But, Dick, I tell you I shall be ruined if you make me go on! How can I pay back the money you came for if I am ruined?"
"I don't know—and I'm not trying to guess riddles to-night. It seems to agree with you pretty well to be ruined, though. You made a lot of money out of being ruined in New York, didn't you?"
"Dick, I have known you since you were a baby! Your father was my best friend—"
"Don't remind me of that!" said Dick, angrily. He had been a little amused by Hallo's desperate pleading, but this reference to his father, whom the man before him had treated so outrageously, revived his anger. "The best chance you've got to get through right now is for me to forget about how friendly you were with my father and how you began to cheat him as soon as he was dead and couldn't watch you any longer!"
"Dick, I will make a last appeal! In the safe in my office there is money—a great sum of money! You can have all of it—every florin! There is much more there than you ever said I owed your mother! The combination of the safe is written in the pocket book in my right hand pocket. Take it out—go back and get the money. I will write out an order for you to take it—I will write out an admission that I cheated your family! Only, let me go before it is too late!"
"No—nothing doing! Straight ahead!"
Perhaps there was a certain note of finality in Dick's voice; perhaps Hallo was just trying to think of some new temptation to put before him. He was silent, at any rate and so, for a minute, was Dick. Dick was really greatly amused by Hallo's pleadings. And now he could not resist a dig. It was revenge, and he took it without delay.
"This ought to be a lesson to you, Mr. Hallo," he said. "I remember that when I was a little bit of a chap you were always telling me that—saying that this thing or that ought to be a lesson to me. Do you remember?"
Hallo did not answer.