"I don't know about that. I want to make money as well as any one, and I'm more than ever in the mood for it to-night; but I'm afraid of your scheme, Billy, and I don't deny it. I'm afraid it'll get me in a hole."
"No, it won't—nothing of the sort. I don't want to get you in no hole, nor to land in one myself. I'm just as honest as any one else, but I'm bound to look out for No. 1 every time, and you owe it to yourself to do the same."
"But this letting a man into the bank at night is something that has a very nasty look."
"Well, I ain't a-goin' to steal nothin', am I? All I want is to look at a name in a book. Upon my word, young feller, you're a deal too squeamish. I can't see where's the possibility of harm comin' to you from a move like that."
"But it's against all rules. If it were known that I had shown the signatures of our depositors to an outsider, I'd lose my place before I knew where I was."
"Perhaps you would. But whose a-goin' to give you away? To show you that I mean to be perfectly square with you, I've asked Jim Morrow and Ed Wilson to meet us down by the bank and go and see the thing done."
"You have?"
"Yes. They are both good friends of yours, and in case anything was brought up against you, you could prove that you did nothing wrong. Come, now, what do you say? It's getting late, and if it's to be done at all it must be done to-night. All I want is to copy the signature of old Thomas Hendrickson. If you will help me to do it I'll give you five hundred dollars as soon as we leave the bank."
"But I don't understand what your man wants it for. Why can't he get it by some other means?"
"Because he can't, that's all I know, and I don't want to know any more. Hendrickson never leaves his room, and will see no one and answer no letters; my man has got them deeds I told you about, and wants to be sure that the old miser's signature is all O. K.; why, he don't tell me, and I'm sure I don't care to know, so long as he is willing to pay for the job he wants done."