“Oh, it’s not a bribe at all, it’s—well, whatever you like to call it. Restitution if you prefer to put it that way.”
“It doesn’t matter what it is called, I have come for the purpose of hearing what you have to say regarding the great beef combine. If you have nothing to say I shall leave, because, as I told you, Mr. Hemster has a good deal of work on his hands, and I’m trying to help him.”
“Well,” said Cammerford, in a hopeless tone of voice, “you are the darndest fool I ever met in my life.”
“You are not the first person who has said as much, Mr. Cammerford, although not in precisely the same language. Now, for the last time, give me a list of the names of those who are behind you.”
“I’ll do that if you will promise me not to say anything to old Hemster about our former relations.”
“I regret that I cannot make you any such promise, Mr. Cammerford. It is my duty to lay before Mr. Hemster everything you place before me, and it is also my duty to warn him that I consider you as big a scoundrel as you consider me a fool.”
“That’s plain talk,” said Cammerford, scowling.
“I intend it to be. Now, without further loss of time, let me see your documents.”
For some minutes Cammerford maintained silence, a heavy frown on his brow, and his eyes fixed on the carpet beneath the table. At last he muttered, “Well, I’m damned!”—and, taking a bundle of papers from before him, he slipped off the elastic band, picked out one after another which he perused with care, then handed them across the table to me, watching me very narrowly as he did so. I took the papers one by one and read them over, making a note with my pencil now and then in my pocket-book. They proved to be exactly what he had said they were in his letter to Mr. Hemster. I pushed them back toward him again, saying:
“I see by some of these documents that the option is for six months, but others make no mention of the time. Why is that?”