"So that’s it—is it?" he nodded his heavy head up and down, as though thinking aloud. "Well, put that out of your mind. I’ll sign nothing. Take me for a fool? Here’s your chance. Give me the money now and let me go or the deal’s off. See? I’m just as anxious to go as you’re to have me go. But I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ll sign no papers in any damn lawyer’s office. Take it or leave it. That’s that!" There was something unspeakably horrible to me about sitting there and chaffering with this man whose every word breathed contamination. For a moment the thought of Dibdin came to me. I would call upon Dibdin in this emergency. Dibdin had hardly been near me of late. Excepting for an occasional luncheon together or a sporadic telephone conversation, I had scarcely seen him. It was as though he dreaded to encounter the monster Pendleton, whom, in a sort he had himself brought into being, and was only waiting until I should be free of him. But somehow I could not then call Dibdin. This was _my_ crisis and my mind revolted at dragging any one else into it. Oddly enough it was not the children that seemed to be the barrier, but Alicia. The picture of Pendleton obscenely hovering over her came scorching, before my vision and I at once, dismissed the thought of calling upon Dibdin. The club,—that was my one chance of getting cash at that hour. "What’s the matter with your club?" Pendleton snapped me up so suddenly that I was startled. Could that fleshy brute read my thoughts? "Just what I was thinking of," I murmured excitedly and snatched up the telephone. "Give me 9100 Bryant." "Damn it—you’re a sport! I like a dead game bird like you." When the club answered, I asked whether Mr. Fred Salmon happened to be in and was informed that the doorman thought he was and that he would page him. I sat waiting with the receiver to my ear. "Tell you what I’ll do," said Pendleton, under the stimulus of expectation. "If you pull this off for me so I can start to-night, while the mood’s on me, I’ll sign any damn thing you please." "Hello!" I suddenly heard in Fred Salmon’s deep voice, "Salmon speaking." "Fred," I told him, "this is Randolph Byrd." "Hello, Ranny!" he broke in exuberantly. "Well, of all the ghosts—" but I checked him. "—I want to cash a check for a thousand dollars right now, Fred. I am at the Manhattan Hotel. The banks are closed. Will you do this for me: Ask at the office and turn out your pockets and get what you can from any of the card players there and anybody else you know. Do you follow me?" "I get you all right—all right—" said the voice of Fred, hardening to a businesslike tone now that money was in question. "Hold the wire a minute, Ran. I’ll see what I can do." Fred’s raucous voice was as plainly audible to Pendleton as it was to me. "Get it," he muttered. "Get it. I’d hate to wait till to-morrow." I nodded. To be rid of him to-night would be a vast relief. And I longed to return home.