The office, on the apex of a triangle formed by the junction of two streets, had an entrance on either side, so that those within seemed to be constantly buffeted by the two streams of humanity. Sammamon came hurriedly forward, a frail man not yet forty whose shoulders stooped as though still bearing the weight of the pack with which he had landed here twenty years before. The body, without vitality, seemed held together by the one impulse of gain that burned in the eyes, which had the strange contradictory quality peculiar to his trade, all fierceness and intensity when examining a client, but wavering uneasily the moment they were subjected to the same scrutiny.
The two entered a cell which served as a cabinet and began to talk, with their foreheads together, both to overcome the noise of the street and to protect themselves against the sharp ears of the three clerks.
"Sammamon, I want two thousand dollars," Bofinger said directly, "two thousand dollars more and that's all, so help me God!"
"Where I get two thousand dollars?" the money-lender protested. "I am bankrupt now with your loans! Ain't the time up to-day—eh? Why you want more money?"
"I am going to marry the woman to-morrow," the lawyer said conciliatingly. "And I've got to hush another one up and do it handsome!"
"Where I get two thousand dollars?" Sammamon repeated with a shrug.
"See here," Bofinger said, tapping him on the knee. "Come to terms now and quit your mumbling. Darn you, you know very well you're making a good thing out of this. Give me the money and I'll sign for three thousand dollars at sixty days and I'll pay the rest then. It takes time to get the thing through the courts."
"I couldn't do it,—so help me! I couldn't do it, I couldn't get the credit, I couldn't get one other cent!"
"Three thousand dollars, Sammamon, at sixty days."