Part 100

“I don't believe I'll be able to meet those notes. So many things have happened--”

“But,” broke in Newmark, “the firm certainly cannot do so. I've been relying on your assurance that you would take them up personally. Our resources are all tied up.”

“Can't we raise anything more on the Northern Peninsula timber?” asked Orde.

“You ought to know we can't,” cried Newmark, with an appearance of growing excitement. “The last seventy-five thousand we borrowed for me finishes that.”

“Can't you take up part of your note?”

“My note comes due in 1885,” rejoined Newmark with cold disgust. “I expect to take it up then. But I can't until then. I hadn't expected anything like this.”

“Well, don't get hot,” said Orde vaguely. “I only thought that Northern Peninsula stuff might be worth saving any way we could figure it.”

“Worth saving!” snorted Newmark, whirling in his chair.

“Well, keep your hair on,” said Orde, on whom Newmark's manner was beginning to have its effect, as Newmark intended it should. “You have my Boom Company stock as security.”

“Pretty security for the loss of a tract like the Upper Peninsula timber!”

“Well, it's the security you asked for, and suggested,” said Orde.

“I thought you'd surely be able to pay it,” retorted Newmark, now secure in the position he desired to take, that of putting Orde entirely in the wrong.

“Well, I expected to pay it; and I'll pay it yet,” rejoined Orde. “I don't think Heinzman will stand in his own light rather than renew the notes.”

He seized his hat and departed. Once in the street, however, his irritation passed. As was the habit of the man, he began more clearly to see Newmark's side, and so more emphatically to blame himself. After all, when he got right down to the essentials, he could not but acknowledge that Newmark's anger was justified. For his own private ends he had jeopardised the firm's property. More of a business man might have reflected that Newmark, as financial head, should have protected the firm against all contingencies; should have seen to it that it met Heinzman's notes, instead of tying up its resources in unnecessary ways. Orde's own delinquency bulked too large in his eyes to admit his perception of this. By the time he had reached Heinzman's office, the last of his irritation had vanished. Only he realised clearly now that it would hardly do to ask Newmark for a renewal of the personal note on which depended his retention of his Boom Company stock unless he could renew the Heinzman note also. This is probably what Newmark intended.

“Mr. Heinzman?” he asked briefly of the first clerk.

“Mr. Heinzman is at home ill,” replied the bookkeeper.

“Already?” said Orde. He drummed on the black walnut rail thoughtfully. The notes came due in ten days. “How bad is he?”

The clerk looked up curiously. “Can't say. Probably won't be back for a long time. It's smallpox, you know.”

“True,” said Orde. “Well, who's in charge?”

“Mr. Lambert. You'll find him in the private office.”

Orde passed through the grill into the inner room.

“Hullo, Lambert,” he addressed the individual seated at Heinzman's desk. “So you're the boss, eh?”

Lambert turned, showing a perfectly round face, ornamented by a dot of a nose, two dots of eyes set rather close together, and a pursed up mouth. His skin was very brown and shiny, and was so filled by the flesh beneath as to take the appearance of having been inflated.

“Yes, I'm the boss,” said he non-committally.

Orde dropped into a chair.

“Heinzman holds some notes due against our people in ten days,” said he. “I came in to see about their renewal. Can you attend to it?”

“Yes, I can attend to it,” replied Lambert. He struck a bell; and to the bookkeeper who answered he said: “John, bring me those Newmark and Orde papers.”

Orde heard the clang of the safe door. In a moment the clerk returned and handed to Lambert a long manilla envelope. Lambert opened this quite deliberately, spread its contents on his knee, and assumed a pair of round spectacles.