"I've got a
lot of old judgments against a fellow named Rosenheim--in the cigar
business, but he's no good--judgment proof--and they aren't worth
the paper they're written on."

"Give them to me!" almost shouted Peters.

Mr. Banks laughed.

"You can have ninety per cent. of all you collect," said he as he
bent over and, pulling out a lower drawer, removed a bundle of
soiled documents. "Here they are. My blessing to you!"

Peters grabbed the transcripts and staggered down the stairs. It
took him less than ten minutes to find Mr. Simon Rosenheim, who
was sitting inside a brass fence at a mahogany desk, smoking one
of the best of his own cigars.

"Mr. Rosenheim," said Peters, "I have some judgments here against
you, amounting to about three thousand dollars."

"Yes?" remarked Rosenheim politely.

"Can you let me have the money?" inquired Peters.

"My dear fellow," retorted Rosenheim, with an oily sneer, "I owe
the money all right, but I don't own a thing in the world. Everything
in this room belongs to my wife. The amount of money I owe is
really something shocking. Even what is in the safe"--he nodded
to a large affair on the other side of the room--"belongs to somebody
else."

Rosenheim had been through this same performance hundreds of times
before, but not with the same denouement.

Suddenly he saw a lean young man, with hollow cheeks and blazing
eyes, leap over the brass railing. In another instant horny hands
grasped him firmly by the windpipe and a voice hissed in his ear:

"Pay me those judgments or I'll strangle you here and now!"

With bursting veins and protruding tongue he struggled helplessly
to escape as his assailant dragged him toward the safe.

"I mean what I say!" half shrieked Peters. "I'm starving! I'd as
lief die one way as another; but before I die you'll pay up those
judgments--every cent!"

Rosenheim was on his knees now before the safe, his eyes starting
from his head.

"Open the safe!" commanded Peters.

Rosenheim, the sweat of death on his brow, fumbled with the
combination; the tumbler caught, the door swung open. Peters lifted
his captive enough to permit him to reach in and take out the bills.

"Count 'em out!" he ordered.

Rosenheim did as he was told, shaking with fear. Peters stuffed
the money into his pocket.

"Now do your damdest!" he shouted. "I've had one piece of law
business before I died. Good afternoon!"

Rosenheim crawled back to his desk, r