After lunch Orde went downtown to his office where for some time he sat
idly looking over the mail. About three o'clock Newmark came in.
“Hullo, Joe,” said Orde with a slight constraint, “sorry to hear you've
been under the weather. You don't look very sick now.”
“I'm better,” replied Newmark, briefly; “this is my first appearance.”
“Too bad you got sick just at that time,” said Orde; “we needed you.”
“So I hear. You may rest assured I'd have been there if possible.”
“Sure thing,” said Orde, heartily, his slight resentment dissipating, as
always, in the presence of another's personality. “Well, we had a lively
time, you bet, all right; and got through about by the skin of our
teeth.” He arose and walked over to Newmark's desk, on the edge of which
he perched. “It's cost us considerable; and it's going to cost us a lot
more, I'll have to get an extension on those notes.”
“What's that?” asked Newmark, quickly.
Orde picked up a paper knife and turned it slowly between his fingers.
“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.
“Note for seventy-five thousand dollars with interest at ten per cent.
Interest paid to January tenth. Mortgage deed on certain lands described
herein.”
“That's it,” said Orde.
Lambert looked up over his spectacles.
“I want to renew the note for another year,” Orde explained.
“Can't do it,” replied Lambert, removing and folding the glasses.
“Why not?”
“Mr. Heinzman gave me especial instructions in regard to this matter
just before his daughter was taken sick. He told me if you came when
he was not here--he intended to go to Chicago yesterday--to tell you he
would not renew.”
“Why not?” asked Orde blankly.
“I don't know that.”
“But I'll give him twelve per cent for another year.”
“He said not to renew, even if you offered higher interest.”
“Do you happen to know whether he intends anything in regard to this
mortgage?”
“He instructed me to begin suit in foreclosure immediately.”
“I don't understand this,” said Orde.
Lambert shook his head blandly. Orde thought for a moment.
“Where's your telephone?” he demanded abruptly.
He tried in vain to get Heinzman at his house. Finally the telephone
girl informed him that although messages had come from the stricken
household, she had been unable to get an answer to any of her numerous
calls, and suspected the bell had been removed. Finally Orde left the
office at a loss how to proceed next. Lambert, secretly overjoyed at
this opportunity of exercising an unaccustomed and autocratic power,
refused to see beyond his instructions. Heinzman's attitude puzzled
Orde. A foreclosure could gain Heinzman no advantage of immediate
cash. Orde was forced to the conclusion that the German saw here a
good opportunity to acquire cheap a valuable property. In that case a
personal appeal would avail little.
Orde tramped out to the end of the pier and back, mulling over the
tangled problem. He was pressed on all sides--by the fatigue after his
tremendous exertions of the past two weeks; by his natural uneasiness in
regard to Carroll; and finally by this new complication which threatened
the very basis of his prosperity. Nevertheless the natural optimism of
the man finally won its ascendency.
“There's the year of redemption on that mortgage,” he reminded himself.
“We may be able to do something in that time. I don't know just what,”
he added whimsically, with a laugh at himself. He became grave. “Poor
Joe,” he said, “this is pretty tough on him. I'll have to make it up to
him somehow. I can let him in on that California deal, when the titles
are straightened out.”