"Don't say any more, Addicks. Words won't help us. I've got to face Rogers as soon as a train can take me back to New York, and after that—then I'll have something to say to you." I started to go.
"What are you going to say to him?" he asked.
"Say to him? What can I say to him? At my solicitation he gave me a hearing—at his own home—treated me best in the world. I told him certain things, and pledged my word they were truths, and I've got to go back and tell——"
"Tell what?"
"That I'm either as big a liar as he says you are or a fool—a doddering fool."
"You are going to do nothing of the kind," Addicks declared peremptorily. "You're going to tell him that you were not posted up to date, and that I, being pressed for money, had pledged some of the million and a half I had told you we had. That's all. He'll see it all right, and he'll trade for—for—what we have left."
I suddenly remembered that he had not told me how many bonds he had on hand. Just a ray of hope in the fog.
"How many free bonds have we to offer, Addicks, suppose he is willing to overlook this ugly piece of trickery?" I asked anxiously.
"I'm not quite sure," he answered, "but I can find out from the books." He rang for Miller, his right-hand man, the dummy treasurer of the Bay State Company, and said to him: "Harry, Mr. Lawson has got mixed up about the bonds. He thought we had a million and a half. You remember we've pledged some in the loans. Just how many have we now on hand?"
"Harry" looked it up and said: "Just $904,000 worth."