scrapers-and-dump-car man, on the ’phone, while I do a bit of figuring. Jump for it!” David Vallory obeyed blindly, with his brain in a whirl. It took several of the hastening minutes to locate Judson at his home in the northern suburb, and when the telephone connection was finally made, the hotel porter was calling the Chicago train and Eben Grillage was at the desk, paying[38] his bill and growling out orders about his hand-baggage. A moment later David had handed the telephone receiver to the big-bodied man and was listening mechanically to the audible half of the conversation which began with shot-like directness. [38] “Yes, this is Grillage.... No, I don’t want to talk about the shipment; I want to know where you do your banking.... With the Middleboro National, you say? Well, this time you’ll do it through my bank—the Middleboro Security. Get that? Attach your draft to bill of lading and give it to Adam Vallory. Otherwise you don’t get your money. That’s all. Good-night.” “Train time, Mr. Grillage,” interrupted the hotel clerk, in his most deferential tone. “That’s all right; you hold that ’bus until I get ready!” snapped the departing guest. Then, thrusting a slip of paper into David’s hand: “Take that to your father, with my love. And a word to you, my boy”—this in a rumbling aside: “After this ’phone talk of mine gets handed about, your father will have all the credit he needs; but just the same, if you’ve got the level head that you seem to have, you’ll stand by and wind this bank business up, once for all. Your father’s too damned good to be a banker in any such wicked world as the one we’re living in. Dig up a good[39] lawyer, push the crooked borrowers to a settlement, and see if you can’t screw enough out of it to square up and leave your father and sister a little something to live on. When it’s done, you let me know by wire, and I’ll give you a job where you can make good if you’ve got it in you. That’s all I’ve got to say. Tell your father good-by for me; I shan’t have time to stop at the bank.” [39] It was not until after the crazy omnibus had rattled away, bearing the St. Nicholas’s departing guest in galloping haste for the train, that David Vallory ventured to glance at the slip of paper which had been shoved into his hand. For an instant the figures on it dazzled him and he had a rush of blood to the brain that made the electric lights in the hotel lobby coruscate and take on many-colored halos.
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