“Well, go do it. And get a move on you. You have precisely until that boy there finishes clicking that machine. Not a second longer.”
“Can't you get them to wait a few minutes?”
“Wallace,” said Thorpe, “do you see that white whiskered old lynx in the corner? That's Morrison, the man who wants to get our land. If I fail to plank down the cash the very instant it is demanded, he gets his chance. And he'll take it. Now, go. Don't hurry until you get beyond the door: then FLY!”
Thorpe sat down again in his broad-armed chair and resumed his drumming. The nearest bank was six blocks away. He counted over in his mind the steps of Carpenter's progress; now to the door, now in the next block, now so far beyond. He had just escorted him to the door of the bank, when the clerk's voice broke in on him.
“Now,” Smithers was saying, “I'll give you a receipt for the amount, and later will send to your address the title deeds of the descriptions.”
Carpenter had yet to find the proper official, to identify himself, to certify the check, and to return. It was hopeless. Thorpe dropped his hands in surrender.
Then he saw the boy lay the two typed lists before his principal, and dimly he perceived that the youth, shamefacedly, was holding something bulky toward himself.
“Wh—what is it?” he stammered, drawing his hand back as though from a red-hot iron.
“You asked me for a telegram,” said the boy stubbornly, as though trying to excuse himself, “and I didn't just catch the name, anyway. When I saw it on those lists I had to copy, I thought of this here.”
“Where'd you get it?” asked Thorpe breathlessly.