Off-Hand Sketches | Page 8

lower, while his eyes remained steadily fixed upon my face.
"I shall have to ask you to extend it for me."
"I don't think we can do that," he coldly replied.
"Will you consult your partners?" I said; "time presses."
The man bowed stiffly, his aspect about as pleasing as if I had robbed him, and turned away. I was standing near the door of the counting-room, inside of which were his two partners, with whom he had retired to confer.
"Jones can't pay his note," I heard him say, in tones most unpleasant to my ear.
"What!" was replied; "Jones?"
"Yes, Jones."
"What does he want?"
"A renewal."
"Nonsense! He can pay, if he finds he must."
"It is nearly half-past two," one of them remarked.
"No matter. It's of too much importance to him to keep his good name; he'll find somebody to help him. Threaten him with a protest; shake that over his head, and the money'll be raised."
With a Siberian aspect, the man returned to me.
"Can't do any thing for you," he said. "Sorry for it."
"My note must lie over, then," I replied.
"It will be protested."
The very sound of the word went through me like an arrow. I felt the perspiration starting from every pore; but I was indignant at the same time, and answered, as firmly as I could speak--"Very well; let it be."
"As you like," he said, in the same cold tone, and with the same dark aspect, partly turning away as he spoke.
"But, my dear sir"--
"It is useless to waste words," he remarked, interrupting me. "You have our ultimatum."
As I left the store, I felt as if I had been guilty of some crime; I was ashamed to look even the clerks in the face. A feeble resolution to make an effort to save myself from the disgrace and disaster of a protest stirred in my mind; but it died away, and I returned to my store to await the dread result that must follow this failure to take up my paper. I looked at the slow-moving hand on the clock, and saw minute after minute go by with a stoicism that surprised even myself. At last the stroke of the hammer fell; the die was cast. I would be protested, that greatest of all evils dreaded by a man of business. As to going home to dinner, that was out of the question; I could not have eaten a mouthful to save me. All I had now to do was to wait for the visit of the notary, from which I shrank with a nervous dread. Everybody in the street would know him, I thought, and everybody would see him enter my store and comprehend his business.
Half-past three arrived, and yet I had not been bearded by the dread monster, at whose very name thousands have trembled and do still tremble. I sat awaiting him in stern silence. Four o'clock, and yet he had not come. Perhaps, it was suggested to me, the holders of the note had withdrawn it at the last moment. Cheering thought!
Just then I saw a lad enter the store and speak to one of the clerks, who pointed back to where I sat. The boy was not over fourteen, and had, I noticed as he approached, a modest, rather shrinking look.
"Mr. Jones?" he said, when he had come near to me.
"Yes," I replied, indifferently, scarcely wondering what he wanted.
"Will you pay this note?" he said, opening a piece of paper that I had not observed in his hand, and presenting it to me.
My head was in a whirl for an instant, but was as quickly clear again.
"No, my lad," I replied, in a composed voice, "I shall not pay it."
"You will not pay it?" he repeated, as if he had not heard me distinctly.
"No," said I.
The lad bowed politely, slipped the dishonoured note into his pocket, and retired.
I drew a long breath, leaned back in my chair with a sense of relief, and murmured--"Not such a dreadful affair, after all. So, I am protested! The operation is over, and I hardly felt the pain. And now what next?"
As I said this, the man whose Siberian face had almost congealed me entered my store, and came hurriedly back to where I still remained sitting. His face was far less wintry. The fact was, I owed the firm fifteen thousand dollars, which was no joke; and they were nearly as much alarmed, when they found that my note was actually under protest, as I was before the fact.
"Is it possible, Mr. Jones," he said, his voice as husky and tremulous as mine was when I called upon him an hour or two before, "that you have suffered your note to lie over!"
"Did I not inform you that such would be the case?" I replied, with assumed sternness of voice and manner.