A Five-Minute Yarn, With
An Unexpected Twist at the End
THE MONEY LENDER
"Send him in!" cried the warty man suddenly, with something between a snarl and a cry.
The door marked "Private" opened to admit a shrinking figure, then was discreetly closed.
The man who had entered giggled hysterically by way of greeting, removing a cracked derby at the same instant. He was stoop-shouldered and frail. His underlip quivered curiously. Yet in his attitude there was a sort of desperate humor, a pathetic braggadocio. He waited in twitching nervousness, twirling his cracked derby in his hands.
"Sit down!" said Martin Hoganson, immersed in a letter file. His voice grated like a rusty hinge, but the words were automatic.
The man addressed jumped as if the penetrating voice had been a sudden knife thrust sharply into him. His maudlin giggle again escaped. He dropped into a chair near the door and swung his left leg over his right, then after a moment reversed the performance.
Finally, he placed both feet squarely together before him on the floor. His pale eyes fixed themselves upon a calendar on the rear wall. The calendar had been the gift of a great banking institution; the legend across its top panel read: "Pay All Bills By Check, You Will Spend Less Money This Way Than If You Have The Cash About You."
In a moment the searcher at the oak cabinet swung to attention. He glanced at the man in the chair out of pouched eyes, then darted a look at the clock.
"Right on the dot, eh, Smith?" he observed.
The visitor's voice cracked in a mirthless laugh. "I was an office man myself, once."
"Were yuh?" asked Martin Hoganson, without interest. As the other did not reply, he continued: "Well, I s'pose yuh didn’t make an appointment to tell me that, eh?"
Martin Hoganson’s mannerisms were peculiar. His life had been attempted twice.
“Ha, ha! Of course not," giggled the victim of this pleasant irony.
If only Hoganson were not so damned fat, he thought! Others in their time had been irritated by Mr. Hoganson's fatness,
"I guess you know why I'm here, Mr. Hoganson," smirked the man Smith, "I wrote a letter . . . I hoped. . ."
"I read it," said Martin Hoganson, "and of all the damn drivel I ever read it was the worst."
The visitor was shocked.
"I hoped. . ."
"Yeah," said Hoganson, with deep scorn, "they all do! And what good does hoping do me? They all hope, and none of 'em pay."
"You mean you won't. . . you can't. . . ?"
"Nothin' doin'!" said Martin Hoganson solidly, "That's flat, Smith! Yuh oughta know better."
The thin man drooped in his chair. This was what he had feared. His forced smile vanished.
"Mr. Hoganson," he said desperately, "I ain't lying! My wife's sick. . . I'm sick. . . I can't do it! I ain't lazy. I'm willing to work; but you know what chance a man's got at my age!" Eagerly confidential, he concluded: "I ain't even got the rent!"
The money lender toyed thoughtfully with a penholder.
"You've had time, Smith," he said. "We been pretty lenient. We extended your time two weeks ago. Las' month you was three weeks late, and month before that you was a week late. Looks like we been pretty good to yuh. I ain't a hard man, but I can't afford to get sentimental."
"You couldn't give me just a week?" pleaded Smith.
"Not a day!" said Hoganson. "I'm awful sorry, Smith, but there y'are! I'm a business man, and so are you. Sentiment don’t pay. You know that. You knew what you was doin' when you signed our agreement. We made good, and you didn't; that's all. It's all straight—and it's all legal!"
He looked defiantly at his visitor, as if daring him to deny it. The little man was blinking. He seemed, somehow, to have shrunk in height.
"Can't you give a fellow a chance?" he whispered.
"A chance!" echoed the money lender. "I ain't drivin' yuh! It ain't me! This is plain business. Smith, can't yuh see?"
He adjusted his tie reproachfully. The rings on his lifted fingers angered his visitor, who leaped to his feet.
"Business be. . . !" At the height of his indiscretion, Smith weakened. "I gotta have it!" he said, "I tell you I gotta have it! Good God!" he hoarsely whispered, "don't you ever think of anything but business? Don't it mean anything that you're breaking me?"
"I ain't goin' to argue with yuh," said Hoganson. "You're excited."
"Excited!"
Quite suddenly Smith became excited. He went to pieces in an instant.
"You lying crook!" he shrilled. "You damn thief! You. . ."
The money lender smiled.
"Tut, tut," he deprecated. "This won't do, Smith! I'm treatin' yuh pretty white—pretty white! I told yuh I'm sorry for yuh. Look here, now: you go out and rustle up the money some place—any place—and bring it in tomorrow. That'll give yuh a day. I don't wanta be hard on yuh. Here, have a smoke on me!"
He extracted a gaudy cigar box from a drawer and extended it across the flat desk.
The man Smith seemed frozen with horror. He resisted an impulse to seize a handful of the costly cigars and hurl them into the face of Martin Hoganson. Then the ghastly humor of the situation struck him; his anger became deadly. He stretched out a hand and transferred one of the cigars from the box to his pocket.
"All right, Hoganson," he said insolently. "I'll take it—because I think it's the only thing you ever gave away for nothing. I want to save it—as a souvenir—in case I should forget you!"
