by you, for old times’ sake, I don’t doubt. To me, Eben Grillage has never been the hard man that others seem to find him; he is still the loyal friend of the boyhood days—our boyhood. Different as we were, or perhaps just because of that difference, we were like brothers. Why should the fact that he is Vinnie’s father make you hold back?”

“I don’t know that I could explain it, even to you, Dad. But, somehow, I should feel handcapped. Virginia has a mighty keen, sharp-edged[22] little mind of her own. I have a notion that she wouldn’t think much of a fellow that her father was nursing along by hand.”

[22]

“Perhaps you are right. But tell me more about her.”

“I wish there were more to tell. I have met her a few times, and she has been mighty sweet to me—for the sake of the kiddie days here in Middleboro, as she occasionally took care to remind me. I’m not in her set, you know; not even in the outer edges of it. Besides, as I have said, she has a string of fellows as long as your arm. It’s only a pipe-dream for me, as yet, and I’m going to forget all about it now, until after we’ve staved off this trouble of yours. Will you turn me loose among the money papers and securities? I’d like to make a few figures for myself.”

With this for a beginning, David Vallory’s first day in the home town resolved itself into a grind of hard work. Through what was left of the forenoon, and straight on to three o’clock—welcome hour when the bank doors were shut upon the public, and the tired old paying teller and his assistant had an opportunity to balance their cash—the young man probed steadily, sometimes with his father at his elbow, but oftener alone.

What he discovered sobered him at first, and[23] later evoked symptoms of a panicky nature. The Middleboro Security, a one-man bank in all that the term implies, was—unless some of the bad paper could be redeemed—plainly insolvent; and, what was much worse, the insolvent condition was of long standing. The failure of the Carnaby Stove Works had been merely the tiring spark to set off the explosion. Without immediate help; help that must run into the tens of thousands; the bank must close its doors.

[23]

Though the June afternoon was not oppressively warm, David Vallory found himself sweating profusely when the final column of figures had been added. In the quiet of the semi-darkened bank, where Winkle and the three clerks were still striving 

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