"I've no objections to your thrashing Gresham and I'd like to be your proxy, but you'd better put it off.

If you compel Gresham by force to sign these bonds he can repudiate that action under protection of the court and it will work against you." Johnny Gamble controlled himself with an effort.
"They're my bonds," he persisted with his thoughts, however, more on Constance than on business.

"He'll sign them or I'll smash him." Gresham, speaking above his panic of physical cowardice with a tremulous effort, interpolated himself into the argument.
"I'll sign," he promised with stiff lips, and tried to write his name on the cover of a magazine.

The scrawl was so undecipherable that he rose from the table and walked up and down the room in acute distress, holding his right hand at the wrist and limbering it.

"If I sign," he presently bargained as he came to the table, "I must be promised freedom from the distaste of a personal encounter." Loring hastily complied, and Johnny, after having been prodded into a recognition of the true situation, agreed with a disgusted snarl.
Gresham, with nerves much restored and a smile beginning to appear upon his now oily features, carefully assigned each bond, and then, secure in Johnny's promise, which he accepted at the par value all men gave it, stood up and shook his finger warningly.
"A signature obtained under coercion is not worth the ink it took to scrawl it," he triumphantly declared, having taken his cue from Loring.
"Any court in America will set aside this action." "I know it," Johnny unexpectedly coincided.