Barclay smiled pacifically, and limped over to Hendricks and took the note from him and put it back into the portmanteau. Then Barclay replied: "No, Bob, I didn't make your father—the times made your father. It was that or confess to Gabe Carnine, who swelled up on taking his job, that we hadn't paid the taxes on the company's land, though our check had been passed for it. When it came in, we gave the county treasurer credit on his daily bank-book for the nine thousand, but we held out the check. Do you see?"
"Yes, that far," replied Hendricks.
"Well, it's a long story after that, but when I found Gabe wouldn't accommodate us for six months by giving us his note to carry as cash until we could pay it,—the inspectors wouldn't take mine or your father's,—and our books had to show the amount of gross cash that the treasurer deposited before Gabe came in, your father thought it unwise to keep holding checks that had already been paid in the drawer as cash for that nine thousand, so we—well, one day he just put this note in, and worked it through the books."
Hendricks had his devil well in hand as he stared at Barclay, and then said: "John—this is mighty dangerous business. Are we carrying his account nine thousand short on our books, and making his pass-book balance?"
"That's it, only—"
"But suppose some one finds it out?" asked Hendricks.
"Oh, now, Bob, keep your shirt on. I fixed that. You know they keep two separate accounts,—a general maintenance account and a bond account, and Gabe has been letting us keep the paid-off bonds in the vault and look after their cancelling, and while he was sick, I was in charge of the treasurer's office and had the run of the bank, and I squared our account at the Eastern fiscal agency and in the bond account in the treasurer's office, and fixed up the short maintenance account all with nine thousand dollars' worth of old bonds that were kicking around the vault uncancelled, and now the job is hermetically sealed so far as the treasurer and the bank are concerned."
"So we can't pay it back if we want to? Is that the way, John?" asked Hendricks, his fingers twitching as he leaned forward in his chair.
"Ah, don't get so tragic about it. Some day when Gabe has calmed down, and wants a renomination, I'll take him in the back room and show him the error that we've both made, and we'll just quietly put back the money and give him the laugh." There was a pause, and Barclay tilted his chair back and grinned. "It's all right, Bob—we were where we had to do it; the books balance to a 'T' now—and we'll square it with Gabe sometime."
"But if we can't—if Gabe won't be—be—well, be reasonable? What then?" asked Hendricks.