“Whatever else you do to-night at the bank, don’t fly off the handle. I know he’s done us dirt. And I know, too, that he hasn’t any love for us. But, kid, we’ve got to face the fact that we’re licked. There’s no getting around that. Smart as we are, his money and influence have been too much for us. And if you shoot it back at him, and make him mad, he may close up like a clam and leave us in the lurch.”
“What do you want me to do,” says Poppy, “lick his hand?”
“We’ve got to knuckle down to him. It’s as bitter to me, of course, as it is to you. But we’ve simply got to do it. There’s no getting out of it. Anyway,” I held up the brighter side, “we’ll be richer by two hundred dollars. And Mrs. O’Mally will get her two-dollar price. So we haven’t so terribly much to feel blue about. Then, too, there’s the treasure.”
Stopping in front of the police station, Poppy rubbered through the screen door.
“Wait here,” says he, going inside, where he exchanged a few quick words with Bill Hadley, who, in reply, laughed and nodded. Had my mind been less jammed full of uneasiness, I might have been curious. But just then the more important thought to me was what would happen to us if Poppy’s temper did get away from him at the bank. Going to the wall, sort of, in bankruptcy, would Dad have to step in and foot my half of the losses? It was a sickening thought.
There was a light in the bank. And seeing two automobiles parked at the curb, one of which was the grandson’s snappy little roadster, we weren’t surprised, on being admitted, to find the whole family there.
“Have a seat,” says young Pennykorn, as lordly-like as you please, “and we’ll get down to business.”
“Thanks,” Poppy complied dryly.
The kid, it seemed, was going to do the talking. His grandfather and father apparently had made that arrangement with him. For they sat back in silence.
“I suppose young Todd has told you about the contract.”