“It’s a lie!” cried the other.
Jadwin beat his fist upon the arm of his chair. His voice was almost a shout as he answered:
“You—sold—him—out. I know you. I know the kind of bug you are. You ruined him to save your own dirty hide, and all his life since poor old Hargus has been living off the charity of the boys down here, pinched and hungry and neglected, and getting on, God knows how; yes, and supporting his little niece, too, while you, you have been loafing about your clubs, and sprawling on your steam yachts, and dangling round after your kept women—on the money you stole from him.”
Scannel squared himself in his chair, his little eyes twinkling.
“Look here,” he cried, furiously, “I don’t take that kind of talk from the best man that ever wore shoe-leather. Cut it out, understand? Cut it out.”
Jadwin’s lower jaw set with a menacing click; aggressive, masterful, he leaned forward.
“You interrupt me again,” he declared, “and you’ll go out of that door a bankrupt. You listen to me and take my orders. That’s what you’re here today for. If you think you can get your wheat somewheres else, suppose you try.”
Scannel sullenly settled himself in his place. He did not answer. Hargus, his eye wandering again, looked distressfully from one to the other. Then Jadwin, after shuffling among the papers of his desk, fixed a certain memorandum with his glance. All at once, whirling about and facing the other, he said quickly:
“You are short to our firm two million bushels at a dollar a bushel.”
“Nothing of the sort,” cried the other. “It’s a million and a half.”
Jadwin could not forbear a twinkle of grim humour as he saw how easily Scannel had fallen into the trap.
“You’re short a million and a half, then,” he repeated. “I’ll let you have six hundred thousand of it at a dollar and a half a bushel.”
“A dollar and a half! Why, my God, man! Oh well”—Scannel spread out his hands nonchalantly—“I shall simply go into bankruptcy—just as you said.”
“Oh, no, you won’t,” replied Jadwin, pushing back and crossing his legs. “I’ve had your financial standing computed very carefully, Mr. Scannel. You’ve got the ready money. I know what you can stand without busting, to the fraction of a cent.”
“Why, it’s ridiculous. That handful of wheat will cost me three hundred thousand dollars.”
“Precisely.”
And then all at once Scannel surrendered. Stony, imperturbable, he drew his check book from his pocket.
“Make it payable to bearer,” said Jadwin.
The other complied, and Jadwin took the check and looked it over carefully.
“Now,” he said, “watch here, Dave Scannel. You see this check? And now,” he added, thrusting it into Hargus’s hands, “you see where it goes. There’s the principal of your debt paid off.”
“The principal?”
“You haven’t forgotten the interest, have you? won’t compound it, because that might bust you. But six percent interest on three hundred thousand since 1878, comes to—let’s see—three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. And you still owe me nine hundred thousand bushels of wheat.” He ciphered a moment on a sheet of note paper. “If I charge you a dollar and forty a bushel for that wheat, it will come to that sum exactly. … Yes, that’s correct. I’ll let you have the balance of that wheat at a dollar forty. Make the check payable to bearer as before.”
For a second Scannel hesitated, his face purple, his teeth grinding together, then muttering his rage beneath his breath, opened his check book again.
“Thank you,” said Jadwin as he took the check.
He touched his call bell.
“Kinzie,” he said to the clerk who answered it, “after the close of the market today send delivery slips for a million and a half wheat to Mr. Scannel. His account with us has been settled.”
Jadwin turned to the old man, reaching out the second check to him.
“Here you are, Hargus. Put it away carefully. You see what it is, don’t you? Buy your Lizzie a little gold watch with a hundred of it, and tell her it’s from Curtis Jadwin, with his compliments. … What, going, Scannel? Well, goodbye to you, sir, and hey!” he called after him, “please don’t slam the door as you go out.”
But he dodged with a defensive gesture as the pane of glass almost leaped from its casing, as Scannel stormed across the threshold.
Jadwin turned to Hargus, with a solemn wink.
“He did slam it after all, didn’t he?”
The old fellow, however, sat fingering the two checks in silence. Then he looked up at Jadwin, scared and trembling.
“I—I don’t know,” he murmured, feebly. “I am a very old man. This—this is a great deal of money, sir. I—I can’t say; I—I don’t know. I’m an old man … an old man.”
“You won’t lose ’em, now?”
“No, no. I’ll deposit them at once in the Illinois Trust. I shall ask—I should like.”
“I’ll send a clerk with you.”
“Yes, yes, that is about what—what I—what I was about to suggest. But I must say, Mr. Jadwin—”
He began to stammer his thanks. But Jadwin cut him off. Rising, he guided Hargus to the door, one hand on his shoulder, and at the entrance to the outer office called a clerk.
“Take Mr. Hargus over to the Illinois Trust, Kinzie, and introduce him. He wants to open an account.”
The old man started off with the clerk, but before Jadwin had reseated himself at his desk was back again. He was suddenly all excitement, as if a great idea had abruptly taken possession of him. Stealthy, furtive, he glanced continually over his shoulder as he spoke, talking in whispers, a trembling hand shielding his lips.
“You—you are in—you are in control now,” he said. “You could give—hey? You could give me—just a little—just one word. A word would be enough, hey? hey? Just a little tip. My God, I could make fifty dollars by noon.”
“Why, man, I’ve just given you about half a million.”
“Half a million? I don’t know. But”—he plucked Jadwin tremulously by the sleeve—“just a
