“Seems to me you’re cutting pretty near the deadline, Jack. That’s not a pretty sort of hold-up. You might as well take a sandbag and lie in wait by night.”
“Great rhubarb! You make me tired. I’m not robbing the widow and the orphan, but a fat old Dutchman who doesn’t ask anything of life but his sauerkraut and beer.”
“And you do! You’d better give your ethical sense a good tonic before you butt into the penal code.”
“Come off! I’ve got a better scheme even than the Singerly deal. The school board’s trying to locate a few schools in up-town districts. Very undesirable neighbors. I rather think I can make a couple of turns there. This is all strictly inter nos, as Professor Morton used to say in giving me, as a special mark of esteem, a couple of hundred extra lines of Virgil to keep me in o’ nights.”
He looked at his watch and gave the stem-key a few turns before returning it to his pocket.
“You’ll have to excuse me, old man. I’ve got a date with Adams, over at the Central States Trust Company. He’s a right decent chap when you know how to handle him. I want to get them to finance a big apartment house scheme. I’ve got an idea for a flat that will make the town sit up and gasp.”
“Don’t linger on my account, Jack. I only stopped in to see whether you kept your good spirits. I feel as though I’d had a shower bath. Come along.”
Several men were waiting to see Balcomb in the outer office and he shook hands with all of them and begged them to come again, taking care to mention that he had been called to the Central States Trust Company and had to hurry away.
He called peremptorily to the passing elevator-car to wait, and as he and Leighton squeezed into it, he continued his half of an imaginary conversation in a tone that was audible to every passenger.
“I could have had those bonds, if I had wanted them; but I knew there was a cloud on them—the county was already over its legal limit. I guess those St. Louis fellows will be sorry they were so enterprising—here we are!”