Holm

Action for contribution by one obligor on a joint and several promissory note against his co-obligors. The execution of the note and its payment by the plaintiff are conceded facts. It is necessary to go back into the early stages of the transaction to ascertain the present relation of the parties.

In January, 1917, the parties plaintiff and defendant were and yet are stockholders in a corporation. This corporation on said date borrowed from the First National Bank of Eureka the sum of $2,000, and, as evidence of its obligation to repay the same, executed its corporate promissory note to said bank in said sum of $2,000, with interest at the rate of six per cent per annum compounded quarterly. In July of the same year, the note remaining wholly unpaid, the parties plaintiff and defendant herein, upon the demand of the bank and to prevent a suit to collect the note, executed to the bank their joint and several promissory note of like tenor and effect. The former note was delivered up to the corporation. This last note, dated in July, 1917, is the note in suit.

The defendants offer the defense that they were, by mutual agreement and understanding, merely sureties for the plaintiff…