Only a Pen Scratch

by Judge Clark

“Quite right, is it?” said old Ike to young Ike.

“Quite,” the latter answered.

“Squared up like a man?”

“To the fraction of a cent.”

“And the fraction in our favor?”

“Trust me for that!” said young Ike.

An interchange of winks supplied the next step in the dialogue, as much as to say, “You’ll do,” on the part of the old man, and “I know it,” on the part of the younger.

“Cancelled his note afore givin’ it up, in course?” the former resumed.

“Gave it to him with the name cut off.”

“Allus a safe plan,” said old Ike, with a nod of mingled approval and palsy; “otherways, ye see, our indorsement might be forged, and us let in for the amount to some other holder. But where’s the money, Isaac?”

“Here it is, grandpa.”

Grandfather and grandson, it thus appears, were Isaac Crunch, senior and junior. They were partners, moreover, as “Crunch & Grandson.” But though Isaac senior had taken Isaac junior into the business—that of lending money at grinding rates—the interest of the latter was wholly prospective. He was a valuable assistant, however, in the way of drafting and collecting notes, and handing over the proceeds—duties to which he applied himself willingly enough, leaving the post of guarding the pelf to his senior partner, whom he knew to be as safe as any watch-dog.

“He can’t last [forever],” young Ike dutifully reflected, as he watched the old man’s trembling fingers, in which the bank-notes rustled as he counted them, preparatory to locking them away in the safe, which he afterward did, standing so as to conceal the “combination” from his grandson, distrusting, probably, the maxim, “Two can keep a secret.”

Edgar Colton’s heart was light as he turned his back on the money-lender’s door. With the sum he had borrowed from old Crunch—nominally from Crunch… Read More