"You can stand losing the money."
"I suppose so."
"But when I jump," continued Evarts, "I'll have to stay out of the country
after that. It'll take money---and you'll have to furnish me with it."
"How much?"
"Well," continued the foreman, craftily, "I wouldn't leave the country with
less than enough to set me up elsewhere. I'd need---well, let me see. I
couldn't start in a new country on less than ten thousand dollars."
"That would make fifteen thousand dollars, in all." Mr. Bascomb finished
his remark with a groan.
"Well, what are you howling about?" demanded Evarts unfeelingly. "You've
got the money."
"It will lower my holdings in the Melliston Company," complained Mr.
Bascomb bitterly "I'm not a rich man, and I haven't any too much stock
in the company at the present moment."
"You'd have to sell it all out, if I gave the directors a chance to find
out that you're a jailbird---that you did time as a younger man," sneered
Evarts.
"For goodness' sake hold your tongue, man!" gasped Mr. Bascomb in accents
of terror.
"Just think," grinned Evarts heartlessly, "how delighted your directors
would be to know that you had done time in prison."
"Silence, man!" implored Bascomb.
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