“It might be possible, of course, for me to buy those maturing notes without your knowledge or consent. But I thought it would look better—help your credit, in other words—if you took them up yourself. You can see that.”
Copeland had already thought of this; the idea did not add to his comfort. The mystery that enveloped Eaton enraged him; business was not done in this way. If anybody wanted to put one hundred thousand dollars into the drug house, there were direct businesslike ways of suggesting it. He tipped himself back in his chair and pointed the unlighted cigar he had been fumbling at a calendar that hung on the wall over his desk.
“My paper in the Western National isn’t due for five days: I dare them to sell it—to you or anybody else! As you know perfectly well, it would be bad banking ethics for a bank to sell the paper of an old customer. It isn’t done! I’ve about made up my mind to quit the Western, anyhow. Those fellows over there think they’ve got the right to sweat every customer they’ve got. They’re not bankers; they’ve got the souls of pawnbrokers and ought to be making loans on household goods at forty per cent a month.”
“That,” replied Eaton calmly, “has nothing to do with the matter in hand. I understand that you decline my offer, which is to take up the Western’s notes.”
“You’re right, mighty right! You wouldn’t accept such an offer yourself, Eaton. If I were to come to you with a mysterious offer to advance you money, you’d turn me out of your office.”
“Very likely,” Eaton assented. “And I don’t undertake to defend the idea; I confess that it’s indefensible. As I understand you, you’ve passed on the matter finally.”
“I have,” replied Copeland sharply.
Eaton rose. He bent his gaze with an absent air upon the calendar, as though surprised to find it there. Then, seeming to recall that he had finished his errand, he walked to the door.
“Thank you very much, Copeland,” he said; and passed out.
Jerry Amidon paused in the act of shaking hands with a country customer to stare at the departing figure, but Eaton stalked austerely into the street quite unmindful of him.