"I don't see what's so funny about that! Mr. Bassford was walking the floor with that message when I came to the office. He said papa and the state were both going to be ruined. There's a quarter of a million dollars to be paid on bonds that are coming due June first, and there isn't any money to pay them with. That's what he said. And Mr. Foster is the state treasurer, and he's gone fishing."
"Fishing?"
"He left word he had gone fishing. Mr. Foster and papa don't get along together, and Mr. Bassford says he's run off just to let those bonds default and bring disgrace on papa and the state."
Ardmore's grin broadened. The Appleweight case was insignificant compared with this new business with which he was confronted. He was vaguely conscious that bonds have a way of coming due, and that there is such a thing as credit in the world, and that it is something that must not be trifled with; but these considerations did not weigh heavily with him. For the first time in his uneventful life vengeance unsheathed her sword in his tranquil soul. Billings had always treated him with contempt, as a negligible factor in the Ardmore millions, and here at last was an opportunity to balance accounts.
"I will show you how to fix Billings. Just let me have one of those blanks."
And after much labor, and with occasional suggestions from Miss Jerry, the following message was presently ready for the wires:
Your infamous imputation upon my honor and that of the state shall meet with the treatment it deserves. I defy you to do your worst. If you come into North Carolina or bring legal proceedings for the collection of your bonds I will fill you so full of buckshot that forty men will not be strong enough to carry you to your grave.
"Isn't that perfectly grand!" murmured Jerry admiringly. "But I thought your family and the Bronx Loan and Trust Company were the same thing. That's what Rutherford Gillingwater told me once."
"You are quite right. Billings works for us. Before I came of age he used to make me ask his permission when I wanted to buy a new necktie, and when I was in college he was always fussing over my bills, and humiliating me when he could."