“Give us the papers,” he went on. “We can get a little back from the investment then. We won’t lose it all. If you won’t give us the money give us the papers.”
“He’ll give us both, Burke, that’s what he’ll give us!” broke in the other man. This man had a hard face, and his eyes, unlike those of his companion, met his opponent’s boldly. But they did not have a pleasant or safe look—those eyes. “He’ll give us both, that’s what he’ll give us!” said this man again. “If he doesn’t he’ll suffer for it!” and he banged his fist down on the deacon’s desk.
“Oh, go easy now, Harrison,” advised Burke Denton. “Go a bit easy.”
“No, that’s not my way!” exclaimed Jake Harrison. “What I want I’ll get, if I have to take it out of his hide. He went into this investment with us and——”
“But you said it would be successful, and that we’d all make money,” whined the deacon. “I didn’t think I’d lose.”
“I told you it wasn’t a dead sure thing,” said Harrison. “You knew it was a risk when you went into it. Now we’re in a hole, and you will have to help us out.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then you’ll be in more trouble. What we want is money enough to tide us over, or else those papers, so we can use ’em to raise money on from some one else. Come now, you’ve got the money and we know it. We’re going to have it, too!” And again Harrison banged his fist down on the desk, so that Mr. Blackford jumped.
There was a worried look on his face as he looked at the two men—one shifty, and inclined to temporize, merely through fear of getting into too-deep water, the other a bolder and more hardened character, it seemed.
“Come, what do you say?” asked Harrison. “The papers or the money?”