“Yes,” said Lidgerwood, studying his man shrewdly by the road of the eye, and without prejudice to the listening ear.

“As I understand it, the complaint of the survivors is based upon the fact that they think they ought to have had a cash dividend forthcoming on the closing up of the association’s affairs,” Flemister went on; and Lidgerwood again said, “Yes.”

“As Hallock has probably told you, I had the misfortune to be the president of the company.  Perhaps it’s only fair to say that it was a losing venture from the first for those of us who put the loaning capital into it.  As you probably know, the money in these mutual benefit companies is made on lapses, but when the lapses come all in a bunch——­”

“I am not particularly interested in the general subject, Mr. Flemister,” Lidgerwood cut in.  “As the matter has been presented to me, I understand there was a cash balance shown on the books, and that there was no cash in the treasury to make it good.  Since Hallock was the treasurer, I can scarcely do less than I have done.  I am merely asking him—­and you—­to make some sort of an explanation which will satisfy the losers.”

“There is only one explanation to be made,” said the ex-building-and-loan president, brazenly.  “A few of us who were the officers of the company were the heaviest losers, and we felt that we were entitled to the scraps and leavings.”

“In other words, you looted the treasury among you,” said Lidgerwood coldly.  “Is that it, Mr. Flemister?”

The mine-owner laughed easily.  “I’m not going to quarrel with you over the word,” he returned.  “Possibly the proceeding was a little informal, if you measure it by some of the more highly civilized standards.”

“I don’t care to go into that,” was Lidgerwood’s comment, “but I cannot evade my responsibility for the one member of your official staff who is still on my pay-roll.  How far was Hallock implicated?”

“He was not implicated at all, save in a clerical way.”

“You mean that he did not share in the distribution of the money?”

“He did not.”

“Then it is only fair that you should set him straight with the others, Mr. Flemister.”

The ex-president did not reply at once.  He took time to roll a cigarette leisurely, to light it, and to take one or two deep inhalations, before he said:  “It’s a rather disagreeable thing to do, this digging into old graveyards, don’t you think?  I can understand why you should wish to be assured of Hallock’s non-complicity, and I have assured you of that; but as for these kickers, really I don’t know what you can do with them unless you send them to me.  And if you do that, I am afraid some of them may come back on hospital stretchers.  I haven’t any time to fool with them at this late day.”

Lidgerwood felt his gorge rising, and a great contempt for Flemister was mingled with a manful desire to pitch him out into the corridor.  It was a concession to his unexplainable pity for Hallock that made him temporize.