her own death warrant
as to put her name on a mortgage; so there we were--blocked. Grierson
was as smooth as oil; said he wanted to help me out, and was willing to
stretch his authority to do it. Then he sprung the trap."

"Having got you just where he wanted you," put in the listener.

"Yes; having got me down. The new proposition was apparently a mere
modification of the first one. I was an accredited customer of the bank,
like other business men of the town, and as such I could ask for an
extension of credit on accommodation paper, and Grierson, as president,
was at liberty to grant it if he saw fit. He offered to take my paper
without an endorser if I would cover his personal risk with my stock
collateral, assigning it, not to the bank, but to him. I fell for it
like a woolly sheep. The stock transfers were made, and I signed a note
for one hundred thousand dollars, due in sixty days; Grierson explaining
that two months was the bank's usual limit on accommodation paper--which
is true enough--but giving me to understand that a renewal and an
extension of time would be merely a matter of routine."

Griswold was shaking his head sympathetically. "I can guess the rest,"
he said. "Grierson is preparing to swallow you whole."

"He has as good as done it," was the dejected reply. "The note falls due
to-morrow; and, as I happened to be uptown this afternoon, I thought I
would drop in and pay the discount and renew the paper. To tell the
truth, I'd been getting more nervous the more I thought of it; and I
didn't dare let it go to the final moment. Grierson shot me through the
heart. He gave me a cock-and-bull story about some bank examiner's
protest, and told me I must be prepared to take up the paper to-morrow.
He knew perfectly well that he had me by the throat. I had checked out
every dollar of the loan, and a good bit of our own balance in addition,
paying the building and material bills."

"Of course you reminded him of his agreement?"

"Sure; and he sawed me off short: said that any business man borrowing
money on accommodation paper knew that it was likely to be called in on
the expiration date; that an extension is really a new transaction,
which the bank is at liberty to refuse to enter. Oh, he gave it to me
cold and clammy, sitting back in his big chair and staring up at me
through the smoke of a fat black cigar while he did it!"

"And then?" prompted Griswold.

"Then I remembered the mother and sister, Ken