“Give Mr. Bangs whatever he wants,” he said.
Galusha explained. The clerk asked how he would have the
five-thousand-dollar check made out.
“In your own name?” he asked.
Mr. Bangs reflected. “Why--ah--” he stammered, “I should prefer it
in--ah--some other name, if possible. I should prefer that my name was
not connected with it, if you don't mind.”
“In the name of the person you intend paying it to?” inquired the clerk.
Galusha reflected again. If Martha Phipps' name were written on that
check it would be possible that, some day or other, Cousin Gussie
might see it. And if he saw it, questions would be asked, embarrassing
questions.
“No-o,” he said, hesitatingly; “no, I think I should not care to have
her--that is, to have that person's name appear, either. Isn't
there some way by which the sum could be paid without any one's name
appearing? A check to--to--oh, dear me! why CAN'T I think of it?”
“To bearer, you mean?”
“That's it, that's it. A check to bearer would be very satisfactory,
very satisfactory, indeed. Thank you very much.”
The clerk, who was a painstaking young man, destined to rise in his
profession, inspected the odd individual outside the railing.
“A check to bearer is almost the same as cash,” he said. “If you should
lose it, it would be negotiable--practically the money itself, or pretty
near it.”
Galusha started. He looked radiantly happy.
“That's it!” he exclaimed. “That's it, of course. Thank you for
the suggestion. The money will be the very thing. It will be such a
delightful surprise. And there will be no one's name upon it at all. I
will take the money, of course.”
It took some time to convince the astonished clerk that Mr. Bangs
actually wished five thousand dollars in currency, but he finally was
convinced.
“How will you have it?” he asked. “Small bills or large?”
Galusha apparently did not care. Any denominations would be quite
satisfactory, he affirmed. So, when the transaction was finished, and he
left the Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot office, it was with a new check for
nine thousand, three hundred and ten dollars and thirty-eight cents in
his pocketbook and in his trousers' pocket a roll of bills as thick as
his wrist. By way of modification to this statement, it may be well to
explain that Galusha Bangs' wrists, considered AS wrists, were by no
means thick.
The clerk stared after him as he departed and a fellow clerk paused to
ask questions.
“Who was the old guy?” he inquired.
“Name's Bangs.”
“What is he?”
“A nut,” was the reply, given with the assurance of absolute conviction.
The “nut” traveled back to East Wellmouth upon the afternoon train
and, back once more in the Phipps' sitting room, “shelled out” upon the
center table. Martha stared at the heap of bills and caught her breath
with a gasp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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