“Oh!...” Poppy’s eyes blazed. “You’d like to shut me up, would you? You don’t like to have me tell you to your face what a crooked piece of work that letter was. Glare at me, if you want to. I’m not afraid of you. As it happens I’ve been out in the field talking with your wholesalers. And I know why you want our pickle stock. You’re in a hole. You’ve booked orders that you can’t fill. And you’re trying now to buy our pickles to save yourself. Well, let me tell you something—you aren’t going to get a single pickle from us. Nor a single cucumber, either. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
Smarty started forward.
“I’ll knock your block off!”
But the banker called for silence.
“Young man,” says he in an icy voice, “you’re a fool. For no one but a fool, caught as you are, would impertinently turn down an offer such as we have made you. You have just one more chance—”
“To do what?—sign your paper?”
“Here it is. As a matter of fact,” came steely-like, “we do need your pickles. And what’s more, we’re going to get them. For you’re going to sign this paper before you leave here.”
Click! went the key in the lock.
“They can’t get out now, Grandpop.”
The banker held out a pen.