Burt L. Standish

“ Bainbridge did not answer for a moment. He was busy settling down in the chair which had not been offered him, and in seeing that Tweedy did the same. Then he drew out a cigar case and, with elaborate courtesy, extended it to Crane.
“No?” he murmured, as the latter declined with a brief gesture. “Given up smoking? Here, John.”
When Tweedy had accepted, and his own weed was lighted, Bainbridge leaned comfortably back in his chair.
“To crawl?” he repeated slowly, “Well, I don’t know about that. A fellow never likes to crawl if there’s another way out of a difficulty.” ”

“ You haven’t a single resource left. Your credit’s no good——”
“Oh, I don’t admit that,” put in Bob hastily.
“Whether you admit it or not, it’s true,” retorted Crane, a note of cold, calculating triumph creeping into his voice. “You can’t bluff me. I’ve had a man looking up your affairs for some time, and I know what I’m talking about. Tweedy, here, has been breaking his neck all last week trying to borrow enough to meet your note of eight thousand which is due at noon to-morrow. That note”—he bent forward, and raised for an instant the oblong sheet of paper from his desk—“is here.” ”

“ Instead of ruining us by cutting rates, you’ve played straight into our hands. Timber values can’t go down. We’ll sell at market prices what we bought from you and clean up a cool half million on the deal.”
With an inarticulate cry of fury, Crane leaped to his feet, and stood glaring at Bainbridge with flaming, maddened eyes. The mask of inscrutability had vanished from his face. One saw the real man now, stripped of the veneer of temperament and civilization.
“It’s a plot!” he raved, shaking a skinny fist in Bob’s face. “It’s a vile conspiracy. ”

“ The whole transaction was one in which even his cunning could find no flaw.
But where had the money come from? He could not believe that any one in Bangor had supplied it. It was impossible that his subordinates could have been so deceived. ”