It was a heavy dawn, next day; a thaw had set in and a drizzle of rain softened the snow; gray clouds trailed their draperies across the top of Burkett Hill.
Landlord Files had trouble in getting his kitchen fire started—in the sluggish air the draught was bad. Mr. Files's spirits were as heavy as the air. He knew it was up to him to be the first man in Egypt to come in contact with Tasper Britt that morning.
Stage-driver Jones had an early breakfast, for he had to be off with the mail. Mr. Jones had been up late, for him, and he was grouchy. In the matter of the warfare on Pharaoh his mood seemed to be less assertive than it had been the night before. Mr. Files detected that much after some conversation while the breakfast was served.
“All you have to do is 'gid-dap' and get away,” said Files, sourly. “I have to stay here on my job and be the first to meet him and get the brunt of the whole thing. And I condoned, as you might say, and as he'll probably feel. I let my porch be used for meeting and mobbing, as you might say. And he ketched me grinning over his shoulder when I read them heading words after that old lunkhead of a Prophet passed him the paper.”
“Shut up!” remarked Driver Jones, stabbing a potato.
“I owe him money—and I let my porch be used—”
“Figure out the wear and tear on the planks and pass me the bill. Now shut up and don't spoil my vittles any morn'n you have done in the way of cooking 'em.”
Mr. Files, left alone to meet Britt, resolved to hand that tyrant a partial sop by having breakfast on the table the moment the regular boarder unfolded his napkin; food might stop Britt's mouth to some extent, the landlord reflected.
Result of this precautionary courtesy! The breakfast was a mess when Britt arrived, a half hour late. Mr. Files had depended on his boarder's invariable punctuality and had been obliged to keep “hotting up” the food, watching the clock with increasing despair.
Britt smiled on the landlord when they faced each other in the dining room. The smile made the landlord shiver. He was dreading the explosion. He set on the viands as timidly as a child holding out peanuts to an elephant. Mr. Britt beamed blandly and spoke of the change in the weather and said he was hoping that “Old Reliable Ike wouldn't be bothered too much by the soft footing on his way to Levant.”
Mr. Files gasped when he heard this consideration expressed for the ringleader of the evening's demonstration. He recovered sufficiently to start in on an explanation of the condition of the food.
“It's all right, Files! It's my fault. I overslept.”
Britt ate for a few minutes; then he suspended operations and looked Files hard in the face; that face, as to mouth, was as widely open as the countenance of the office alligator. “I did a whole lot of thinking last night, Files. I'm telling you first, like I propose to tell others in Egypt as I come in contact with 'em during the day—it has been my fault—how things have happened! The night brings counsel! Yes, sir, it surely does.” He went on eating.
“Mr. Britt, I was afraid—”
Pharaoh waved his knife expostulatingly. “I know it, Files! Your face told me the whole story when I stepped in here. But I'm a changed man. I know when I'm down. However, it's my own fault, I repeat. I stubbed my toe over the trigs I had set in the way of my own operations. I deserve what I'm getting—and the lesson will make me a different man from now on.”
Mr. Files staggered out into the kitchen in order to be alone with his thoughts.
Britt spent a longer time than usual in the tavern office after breakfast; he smoked two cigars, himself, and gave a cigar to each of the early citizens who dropped in through the front way after they had received certain information from Files, who excitedly had beckoned them to come to him at the ell door. Mr. Britt frankly exposed his new sentiments about living and doing. When he put on his overcoat and went forth, Prophet Elias popped out of the door of Usial's cot like the little gowned figure of a toy barometer. Britt waved his hand in cheerful greeting. “Prophet Elias, hand me that text about the way of the transgressor being a hard one to travel, and I'll take it in a meek and lowly spirit and be much obliged.” There was no sarcasm in Britt's tone; on the contrary, his manner agreed with his profession regarding meekness. The Prophet swapped stares with Files, who stood in the tavern door; that Elias was greatly impressed was evident, because he withheld speech.
That situation had enough drawing power to bring the brother to the cottage door; he appeared, his spider in his hand.
“Good morning, Usial,” called Tasper. “I own up that you're a convincing writer. According to your request, you see I'm giving you your right name. The voters are giving you honors. Who knows what another issue ofThe Hornetmay get for you?” Britt's tone was one of bluff sincerity.
Egypt's Pharaoh did not seem to be a bit put out because no one replied to him in this astonishing levee. He descended from the porch and strolled off toward Britt Block, puffing his cigar.
He found the cashier alone in the bank. Vaniman hastened to put in the first word. “President Britt, I'm ready to wind up my affairs, and I hope you see the wisdom in holding our talk strictly to the business in hand.”
The president walked in past the grille and sat down at the table; by the mere look he gave the young man Britt succeeded in climaxing the succession of the morning's surprises; Vaniman had more reason than the others to be amazed.
“Frank, I'm sorry!” There was wistful fervor in the declaration; for the first time in their association the president had called the cashier by his Christian name.
Vaniman had risen from his stool; he sat down again and goggled at Britt.
“If the two of us begin to apologize, we'll get all snarled up,” went on the president. “Real men can get down to cases in a better way. I did a lot of thinking last night; probably you did, too. The hell fire I went through yesterday would upset any man. To-day I'm scorched and sensible. I went after something I couldn't get. Just now I don't ask you to stay here permanently. You can stay right along if you want to, I'll say that here and now! But if you're bound to go—later—go when you can leave on the square, after you have broken another man into the job, if you feel you don't want it. I'll send you away then with my best wishes and a clean bill! Please don't make me crawl any more'n I'm doing!”
It was an appeal to Youth's hale generosity—and generosity dominated all the other qualities in Vaniman's nature. “I'll stay, Mr. Britt,” he blurted. “After what you have said I can't help staying.”
The banker rose and stretched out his hand. “Men can put more into a grip of the fist than women can into an afternoon of gabble, Frank.”
After the vigorous clasp of palm in palm, Britt had something more to say. “Vona was terribly stirred up last night, and nobody can blame her. She served notice on me that she was done in the bank. But she needs the money and you and I need her help. Go up and ask her to walk back in here as if nothing had happened. And tell her that what I said about the raise in her pay holds good.”
“I think you ought to go and tell her, Mr. Britt,” Vaniman demurred. “And my standing with Mr. and Mrs. Harnden—”
“I guess your standing will be better from now on,” Britt broke in, twisting his face into a wry smile. “I left Harnden with a hot ear on him last night! Furthermore, you'll have to ask her. She declared that if her father or mother or I tried to change her mind about coming back here we'd be wasting breath. Go on! I'll tend bank.”
When Frank returned with Vona a half hour later the president beamed on them through the wicket. He immediately left the bank office, giving the bookkeeper a paternal pat on the shoulder as he passed her, calling her a good girl. And then the business of the Egypt Trust Company settled back into its usual routine.
During the day customers came to the wicket with notes sanctioned by the president's O. K. and his sprawling initials; Mr. Britt did not trouble himself by consulting the directors in regard to ordinary loans. He was well settled in his autocracy by virtue of the voting proxies which he handled for stockholders, although he had only a modest amount of his own money invested in the stock of the bank. Mr. Britt could use his own money to better advantage. He was permitted to make a one-man bank of the Trust Company because nobody in Egypt ventured to dispute his sapience as a financier.
The customers who came that day were plainly having a hard time of it in controlling their desire to share some of their emotions with the cashier. But Vaniman's stolid countenance did not encourage any confidences.
Some of the repression he exercised in the case of customers extended to his communion with Vona during the slack times of the business day. There seemed to be a tacit agreement between them to keep off the topic of what had happened the night before. Words could not have added to their understanding of their mutual feelings. That understanding had established for them the policy of waiting. Though Frank said but little to the girl about his talk with the president, he imagined he could feel the tingle of Britt's handclasp as he remembered the look on Britt's face, and he pitied the old man. To go on, seizing every opportunity to make love, would seem like “rubbing it in,” Frank told himself. He also said something of the sort to Vona, and she agreed with an amiable smile.
And the two of them agreed on one thing, more especially: Tasper Britt must have had a strange housecleaning of the heart during that vigil in his home on the hill.
Among other convincing evidences of Britt's transformation was his treatment of Prophet Elias at the end of that day.
The Prophet did not deliver his usual matutinal taunts in front of Britt Block. But when he came back from the field in the afternoon, he returned from conferences with Egyptian skeptics who had not seen Tasper Britt in his new form, and therefore, perhaps, their assertions had caused Elias to doubt the evidences of his own senses. At any rate, the Prophet resolved to put the reform of Pharaoh to the test of texts, and he raised his voice and declaimed.
Britt came to the front door and mildly entreated the Prophet to walk in. “I'll be glad to listen to you. Isn't it a good idea to tell me, man to man, in my office what's wrong with me, instead of standing out there in the snow, telling the neighborhood?”
The Prophet went in, having first slapped his hand on his breast, urging action, “'Go in, speak unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt, that he let the children of Israel go out of his hand.'”
He trudged forth, after a time, and walked along slowly toward Usial's house, clawing his hand above his ear with the air of a man trying to solve a perplexing puzzle.
Every now and then the fad of a new trick puzzle—a few bits of twisted wire, or a stick and a string—will as effectually occupy the time of an entire community as a cowbell will take up the undivided attention of a cur, if the bell is hitched to the cur's tail.
The folks of Egypt had a couple of brain-twisters to solve.
What had happened to Tasper Britt?
How did it happen that Cashier Vaniman was holding on to his job?
His townsfolk knew Britt's character pretty well, and they had much food for speculation in his case.
There were some who ventured the suggestion that Hittie's remonstrating spirit had come to him in the night watches. Other guesses ran all the way down the scale of probability to the prosaic belief that Britt had decided that it was not profitable to go on making a fool of himself. It was agreed that Britt had a good eye for profit in every line of action; and it was conceded, even by those who did not believe all that was said about spiritist influences in these modern days, that if Hittie really had managed to get at him it was likely that her caustic communications would knock some of the folly out of him.
Egypt did not know Vaniman, the outlander, very well. Gossip about his reasons for remaining were mostly all guess-so; the folks got absolutely nothing from him on the subject. He did not discuss the matter even with Squire Hexter and Xoa. Frank and Vona had definitely adopted the policy of waiting, and he resolved to take no chances on having that policy prejudiced by anybody carrying random stories to Britt, reports that the cashier had said this or the other.
Vaniman took occasion to reassure Mr. Britt on that point, and the latter had displayed much gratitude. “If you don't hurtme, Frank, I won't hurtyou!” Then the usurer's eyes hardened. “Of course I can't expect you to forget that I threatened to blacken your name in banking circles. But in our new understanding I guess we can afford to call it a stand-off.”
“If I were staying here simply to wheedle you into passing me on with a high testimonial, I'd be playing a selfish game, and that isn't my attitude, sir. I was anxious to get this job. I felt that I had a right to stand for myself, on my own honesty. But I shall tell the whole story the next time I apply for a position. I'm getting to understand big financiers better,” he added, with bitterness.
“Yes, finance is very touchy on certain points,” admitted the president. “But I'm glad you're not going to do any more talking here in town. You're somewhat of a new man here, and you don't know the folks as I do. I suppose some talk will have to be made as to why you and I are sticking along together, after you slapped my face in public. You'd better let me manage the story.”
“You may say what you think is best, Mr. Britt.”
“They're a suspicious lot, the men in this town.” The banker surveyed Vaniman, making slits of his eyes. “However, I've grown used to all this recent talk about me being a fool. If it's also said that I'm a fool for keeping you here, I won't mind it. And you mustn't mind if it's hinted around that you're hanging on in the bank because you've got private reasons that you're not talking about.”
The cashier greeted that sentiment with an inquiring frown.
“Oh, don't be nervous, Frank!” Mr. Britt flapped his hand, making light of the matter. He grinned. “I won't set you out as being the leader of a robber gang. I'm not like the peaked-billed old buzzards of this place—bound to say the worst of every stranger. You'd better turn to and hate the critters here, just as I do.”
Britt's tones rasped when he said that; his feelings were getting away from him. The young man's expression hinted that he was trying to reconcile this rancorous mood with Britt's recent declarations of a new view of life.
“What I really meant to say, Frank, was that such has been my feeling in the past. I'm trying to change my nature. If I forget and slip once in a while, don't lay it up against me.”
After that the president and the cashier in their daily conferences confined their discourse to the business of the bank. Britt got into the way of asking Vaniman's advice and of deferring to it when it had been given. “You're running the bank. You know the trick better than I do.”
Therefore, it was perfectly natural for the president to bring up a topic of the past, a matter where Frank had given advice that had been scornfully rejected. “I've been thinking over what you said about that stock of hard money in the vault needing a guard. That fool of a Stickney has started a lot of gossip, in spite of my warning to him. There's no telling how far the gossip has spread.”
“That kind of news travels fast, sir.”
Britt showed worry. “Perhaps I undertook too much of a chore for a little bank like ours. But because we are little and because this town isn't able to support the bank the way I had hoped, I thought I'd turn a trick that would net us more of a handy surplus in a modest sort of a way.”
Britt did not trouble himself to explain to the cashier that, by a private arrangement with the city broker, the deal would also turn a neat sum into the pocket of the president of the Egypt Trust Company, hidden in the charge of “commission and expenses,” split with due regard to the feelings of broker and president.
“The big fellows are grabbing off twenty-five or thirty per cent in their foreign money deals,” went on the banker. “Tightening home credits so as to do it! What's fair for big is fair for little!”
“The profit is attractive, surely,” the cashier stated.
“Our stockholders have honored me right along, and I'd like to show 'em that I deserve my reputation as a financier. I'm just finicky enough to want to clean up the last cent there is in it—and that's why I'm waiting for the right market. We've got to hold on for a few days, at any rate. But I reckon you feel as I do, that we're taking chances, now that gossip is flying high!”
“I think the vault should be guarded, Mr. Britt.”
“Any suggestions as to a man?”
“I don't know the men here well enough to choose.”
“And I know 'em so blasted well that I'm in the same box as you are. They're numbheads.”
The two men sat and looked at each other in silence; the matter seemed to be hung up right there, like a log stranded on a bank—“jillpoked,” as rivermen say.
“There's one way out of it, Frank,” blurted the president. “Nobody cares when I come or go, nights. I may as well sleep here as in my house, all alone. I'll have a cot put in the back room.” He pointed to a door in the rear of the bank office.
Vaniman came forward with instant and eager proffer. “That's a job for me, Mr. Britt.”
In spite of an effort to seem casual, Britt could not keep significance out of his tone. “It's too bad to pen a young man up of an evening, when he can be enjoying himself somewhere.”
“It's because I'm young that I'm insisting, sir.”
“And I suppose I'm so old that no husky robber would be afraid of me,” returned Britt, dryly. “So you insist, do you?”
“I do.”
“I must ask you to remember that you're doing it only because you have volunteered.”
“I'll be glad to have you tell the directors that I volunteered and insisted.”
“Very well! We'll have the thing understood, Frank. I wouldn't want to have 'em think I was obliging you to do more than your work as cashier.”
Therefore, Vaniman had a cot brought down from Squire Hexter's house, and borrowed a double-barreled shotgun from the same source. He did not consider that his new duty entailed any hardship. He had his evenings for the pachisi games. Xoa insisted on making a visit to the bank and putting the back room in shape for the lodger. But she vowed that she was more than ever convinced that money was the root of all evil.
Frank's slumbers were undisturbed; he found the temporary arrangement rather convenient than otherwise. He kindled his furnace fire before going to the Squire's for breakfast and Britt Block was thoroughly warm when he returned.
There was only one break in this routine, one occasion for alarm, and the alarm was but temporary. Frank heard footsteps in the corridor one evening after he had come back to the bank from the Squire's house. Almost immediately Mr. Britt used his key and appeared to the young man. “I waited till I was sure you were here,” the president explained. “What Hexter doesn't know won't hurt him—and I thought I'd better not come to the house for you. I'm sorry it's so late.” Britt was anxiously apologetic.
“It isn't very late, sir.”
“But it's late, considering what's on my mind, Frank. And now that I'm here I hate to tell you what my errand is.” He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a letter, tapped it with his forefinger, and replaced it. “I got it in the mail after you had gone to supper.”
“If it's any matter where I can be of help, sir, you needn't be a bit afraid to speak out.”
“You can help, but—” After his hesitation Britt plunged on. “I wrote to that broker that I was feeling a little under the weather and was postponing my trip to the city, and now that fool of a Barnes writes back that he's starting right behind his letter to come up here to arrange about taking over the specie and closing the deal, because the market is just right to act. And the through train, the one he'll be sure to take, hits Levant about two o'clock to-morrow morning. He asks me to send somebody down to meet him. That's all one of those taxicab patronizers knows about traveling conditions in the country. Frank, unless you'll volunteer to go I'll have to go myself. I don't want that man talking all the way up here with old Files's gabby hostler, or with anybody else I send from the village.”
Vaniman, even though he tried to make Britt's reasons for the request seem convincing, could not help feeling that the financier's natural secretiveness in matters of personal business was stretched somewhat in this instance. But he gulped back any hesitation and offered to go on the errand.
“Frank, when I was having my run of foolishness I was sorry that you are young. Now I'm mighty glad of it,” declared Britt. “I can take your place in yonder on the cot for the night—and I'm going to do it. But I'll be frank enough to say that I'd rather you'd ride to Levant and back in a sleigh to-night than do it myself. Go rout up Files's hostler, borrow his fur coat, and bundle up warm. It's good slipping along the road, and the trip may have a little pep for you, after all.”
And, putting away his momentary doubts, Frank reflected on the matter and was honestly glad to vary the monotony of his close confinement to the bank.
So he went and roused Files's hostler, bundled himself in the coat and the sleigh robes, and made a really joyous experience out of the trip to Levant, under the stars and over the snow that was crisped by the night's chill.
He waited beside the station platform, standing up in the sleigh and peering eagerly after the train stopped. He called the name, “Mr. Barnes,” until the few sleepy, slouching, countrified passengers who alighted had passed on their way.
It was perfectly apparent that Broker Barnes was not present to answer roll call.
And after waiting, in whimsical delay, to make sure that Mr. Barnes had not come footing it behind the train, Frank whipped up and drove back to Egypt. He felt no pique; he had enjoyed the outing in the sparkling night.
In the gray dawn he again routed out Files's yawning hostler and turned the equipage over to him.
“Hope you found it a starry night for a ramble,” suggested the hostler, willing to be informed as to why a bank cashier had been gallivanting around over the country between days, turning in a sweating horse at break of dawn.
Vaniman allowed that it was a starry night, all right, and left the topic there, with a period set to it by the snap of his tone.
He went directly to the bank and admitted himself with his keys.
President Britt came from the back room, with yawns that matched those of the hostler.
“What time did Barnes say he'd be down here from the tavern in the morning?”
“Mr. Barnes did not come on that train, sir.”
“Well, I'll be—” rapped Britt, snapping shut his jaws.
“But I haven't minded the trip—I really enjoyed the ride,” insisted the messenger.
“Don't tell that to Barnes when he shows up to-night on Ike Jones's stage,” commanded Britt. “I propose to have a few words to say about what it means in the country when a city fathead changes his mind about the train he'll take.” He was looking past the cashier while he talked. He turned away and picked up his hat and coat from a chair. “I'll be going along to my house, I reckon. You'd better catch a cat-nap on the cot. I found it comfortable. I've slept every minute since you've been gone.”
Then Britt hurried out, locking the door behind him.
By noon that day, in the lulls between customers at the wicket, Vaniman had had a succession of run-ins with the demon of drowsiness—a particularly mischievous elf, sometimes, in business hours. Whenever he caught himself snapping back into wakefulness he found Vona's twinkle of amusement waiting for him.
Once she pointed to the big figures on the day-by-day calendar on the wall. The date was February 21st. “Console yourself, Frank, dear,” she advised, teasing him. “The bank will be closed to-morrow and you can make Washington's Birthday your sleep day! But I do hope you can stay awake at our play this evening.”
“The man who invented sleep as a blessing didn't take into account city brokers who change their minds about trains,” he returned. “I hope old Ike Jones will sing that 'Ring, ting! Foo loo larry, lo day' song of his all the way coming up from Levant. It'll be about the sort of punishment that Behind-time Barnes deserves.”
A few minutes later the cashier was jumped out of another incipient nap by the clamor of bells. The two horses that whisked past, pulling a double-seated sleigh, were belted with bells. A big man with a lambrequin mustache was filling the rear seat measurably well. Folks recognized the team as a “let-hitch” from Levant.
“Mr. Barnes comes late, but he comes in style and with all his bells,” Vona suggested.
The equipage swung up beside the tavern porch and the big man threw off the robes and stamped in, leaving the driver to take the horses to the stable.
Landlord Files had furnished an accompaniment for the clangor of the bells; he was pounding his dinner gong.
The new arrival had a foghorn voice and used it in hearty volume in telling Mr. Files that his music was all right and mighty timely! “And that alligator seems to be calling for his grub, too,” he remarked, on his way to hang up his coat. “But he doesn't look any hungrier than I feel.”
“Room?” inquired the landlord, hopefully, swinging the register book and pulling a pen out of a withered potato.
“No room! Just dinner. I expect to be out of here by night.”
Mr. Files stabbed the potato with a vicious pen thrust. He knew food capacity when he viewed it; there would be some profit from a lodging, but none from a two-shilling meal served to a man who had compared himself with that open-mouthed saurian.
But the guest grabbed the penstock while it was still vibrating. He wrote across the book, with great flourishes: “Fremont Starr. State Bank Examiner. February 21st.”
“A matter of record, landlord! Show's I'm here. Tells the world I was here on date noted. Never can tell when the law will call for records. Hotel registers are fine evidence. Always keep your registers.”
“I've had that one eleven years, and it 'ain't been filled up yet,” averred Mr. Files, inspecting the potentate's signature as sourly as if he were estimating by how much the lavish use of ink had reduced the possible dinner profit. “You're the new appointment, hey? I heard you speak, one time, over at the political rally in the shire town.”
“Both my enemies and my friends would have advised you to stay right here on your porch—saying that you could hear me just as well, if you didn't care to make the trip to the shire,” said Mr. Starr, lifting the mat of his mustache in a wide smile. “But when they call me 'Foghorn Fremont' I'm never one mite offended. 'Let your light shine and your voice be heard,' is my motto in politics.”
“Shouldn't wonder if it's a good one, when they get to passing around the offices,” admitted Files. He started on his way to the kitchen.
At that moment President Britt entered, having answered the gong with the promptitude of a fireman chasing a box alarm.
“What have you on the fire, landlord?” called Mr. Starr, absorbed in the dinner topic.
“Boiled dinner!”
Britt did not show the enthusiasm that was exhibited by the other guest.
“Nothing like a boiled dinner after a long ride,” Mr. Starr affirmed. “Plenty of cabbage with mine, if you'll be so kind!”
Files gave Mr. Britt some information that he thought might be of interest. “Here's the new bank examiner. Seeing that you probably have business together, I'll set both of you at the same table.” He retired.
After the commonplaces of getting acquainted, the two tacked the boiled dinner.
“Let's see—who's your cashier?” inquired Starr, chewing vigorously behind the mask of his mustache.
“Young fellow named Vaniman. I have let him take full charge of the bank business. He seems to know all the ropes.”
“Poor policy, Britt! Poor policy!” stated the examiner, vehemently. “Not a word to say against Vaniman—” He halted on the word and opened his eyes on Britt. “Vaniman! A name that sticks. There was a Vaniman of Verona. Easy to remember! There was some sort of a money snarl, as I recollect.”
“It was the young chap's father.”
“And you're letting the son run your bank?”
“I'm not the kind that visits the sins of the fathers on the children,” loftily stated the president. “Furthermore, a burnt child dreads the fire. I heard a railroad manager say that a trainman who had let an accident happen by his negligence was worth twice as much to the road as he was before. You don't say that I made a bad pick, do you?”
“Not a word to say against Vaniman!” repeated Starr, slashing his cabbage. “I neverguessabout any proposition—I go at it! But what I'm saying to you, Britt, is what I'm saying to all the easy-going country-town bankers. 'You may have second editions of the Apostle Paul for your cashiers,' I say, 'but every time you sign a statement of condition without close and careful audit you're bearing false witness.' And being a new broom that proposes to sweep clean, I'm tempted to poke it just as hard to slack presidents and directors as I am to an embezzling cashier who has been given plenty of rope to run as he wants!I'mon the jobexaminingbanks!” He was a vigorous man, Examiner Starr! He showed it by the way he went at his corned beef.
President Britt was perturbed; his eyes shifted; he was even pale. “If that's the way you feel about it, I hope you'll give our little bank a good going-over. I was glad to read of your appointment, Mr. Starr!”
“Uncle Whittum isn't on this job any longer,” stated the examiner, not needing, in Britt's case, as a banker, to dwell upon the lax methods of the easy-going predecessor.
A half hour later, Starr, with his unbuttoned fur-lined overcoat outspread as he strode, giving him the aspect of a scaling aeroplane, marched from the tavern to the bank with Britt.
Vaniman had his mouth opened to welcome a man named Barnes, but he was presented to Bank-Examiner Starr and surprise placed him at a disadvantage in the meeting. The torpor of drowsiness made him appear stupid and ill at ease in the presence of this forceful man who stamped in and proceeded to exploit and enjoy his newly acquired authority. Mr. Starr hung up his coat and hat and swooped like a hawk on the daybook, at the same time calling for the book of “petty cash.”
“First of all, the finger on the pulse of the patient, Cashier,” he declared, grimly jovial. “Then we'll have a look at the tongue, and study the other symptoms.”
President Britt went away to his own office.
Examiner Starr, confining himself to his announced policy of grabbing in on the running operations of the bank at the moment of his entry, studied the petty-cash accounts and checked up the daybook with thoroughness. He found everything all right and grunted his acknowledgment of that discovery.
Then he began on the ledgers, assuring Vona with ponderous gallantry that he wouldn't get in her way; he averred that he had a comparison system of his own, and showed the pride of “the new broom.”
After a time it was apparent that Mr. Starr was having trouble. He added columns of figures over again and scowled; his system was plainly trigged.
“Young lady, where's your comptometer?” he demanded, after he had made a quick survey of the office.
“We have never used one, sir.”
“One is indispensable these days in a bank—especially when a bookkeeper can't add a column of figures correctly by the old method.”
She flushed and her lips quivered. “I'm sure I do add correctly, sir. My books always balance.”
“Add that column, young lady!” He indicated the column with the plunging pressure of a stubby digit, and stood so close to her, while she toiled up the line of figures, that his breath fanned her hair.
Vaniman looked on, sympathizing, feeling sure that the bluff inquisitor had made a mistake of his own.
Her confusion under Starr's baleful espionage sent her wits scattering. She jotted down the total, as she made it.
“Wrong!” announced the examiner. “And your figures are different, even, from the wrong total you have on the books. Try again.”
She set her lips and controlled her emotions and went over the work once more.
Starr exhibited figures which he had jotted on a bit of paper that he had palmed. “You're right, as the figures stand! But your book total doesn't agree with those figures. Now what say?”
Vona was distinctly in no condition to say anything sensible; she stared from the figures to Starr, showing utter amazement, and then she mutely appealed to the cashier.
“I'm sure that Miss Harnden is remarkably accurate in her work, Mr. Starr,” asserted the young man. “I have been in the habit of going over it, myself, and I have found no errors.”
“Oh, you go over it, do you? That's good!” But Starr's tone was not one of satisfied indorsement. He picked up the big book and carried it to the center table. He fished from his waistcoat pocket a small reading glass, unfolded the lenses, and studied the page. He turned other pages and performed the same minute inspection. Then he took the ledger to the window and held page after page against the glass, propping the book in his big hands.
When he turned, Vona was sitting in a chair, trembling, tears in her eyes, apprehension ridging her face.
“Cashier Vaniman, I don't want to hurt this young lady's feelings any more than I have. There's no sense in blaming her until I understand the which and the why of this thing. I have found column after column added wrongly. Perhaps she has done her work, originally, all right. But the pages of this ledger are pretty well speckled with erasures. The two of you will have to thresh it out between yourselves. I'm looking to you as the responsible party in this bank, Vaniman. I'll do the rest of my talking to you. After you have found out what the trouble is you must explain to me.”
“There can be no trouble with our books!” But the cashier stammered; his incredulity would not permit him to discuss the matter then or to offer any sort of explanation; in his amazement he could not think of any possible explanation. He could not convince himself that Vona needed other protection than her own thoroughness and rectitude gave her; however, he wanted to extend his protection.
“If anything is wrong with the accounts, you may most certainly look to me, Mr. Starr. I assume full responsibility. I have found Miss Harnden to be most accurate.”
“I ought to have been through with this small bank and away by night,” grumbled the examiner. “But I'm going to give you a fair show, Vaniman, by waiting over. You've got this evening—and to-morrow is a holiday, and you can take that day, if you need it, to get this tangle straightened out. I'm stopping my work right here.” He slammed the ledger shut and tossed it on the girl's desk. “There's no sense in going through your cash in the vault till I can check by the book accounts. But, bless my soul! I can't understand by what rhyme or reason those figures have been put into the muddle they're in. It's coarse work. I'll be frank and say that it doesn't look like a sane man's attempt to put something over. That's why I'm lenient with you and am not sticking one of my closure notices on to your front door. Now get busy, so that you can be sure it won't go up on the door day after to-morrow.”
He took down his coat and hat and when he left the room they heard him go into Tasper Britt's office across the corridor.
The stricken lovers faced each other, appalled, mystified, questioning with the looks they exchanged.
“Frank,” the girl wailed, “you know I haven't—”
“I know you have been faithful and careful, in every stroke of your pen, dear. Whatever it is, it's not your fault.”
“But what has happened to the books?” she queried, winking back her tears, trying hard to meet him on the plane of his calmness; he was getting his feelings in hand.
“I propose to find out before I close my eyes this night,” he told her, gravely.
Shortly before the supper hour, Britt and Starr came into the bank; they wore their overcoats and hats, and were on their way to the tavern, evidently.
“How are you making it, Frank?” the president inquired, with solicitude.
A sympathetic observer would have found a suggestion of captives, caged and hopeless, in the demeanor of the cashier and the bookkeeper behind the grille.
Vaniman peered through the lattice into the gloom where the callers stood and shook his head. “I'm not making it well at all, sir.”
“But you must have some idea of what the trouble is.”
“There's trouble, all right, Mr. Britt—plenty of it. There's no use in my denying that. But I'm not far enough along to give any sensible explanation.”
The president showed real anxiety. “What do you say for a guess?”
“If you are asking me only for a guess, I should say that the ghost of Jim the Penman has been amusing himself with these books,” replied the cashier; he was bitter; he was showing the effects of worry that was aggravated by lack of sleep.
“Aha! Plainly not far enough along for a sensible explanation,” rumbled Examiner Starr.
“A knave is usually ready with a good story when he has been taken by surprise. Honesty isn't as handy with the tongue. I can only say that something—I don't say somebody—has put these books into a devil of a mess, and I'm doing my best to straighten them.”
“I wish you luck,” affirmed Starr. “I've been talking with your president and he says everything good about your faithfulness, and about how you have been doing guard duty in the bank of late. Perhaps you're a sleepwalker, Vaniman,” he added, with heavy humor.
“I feel like one now,” retorted the cashier. “I was awake all last night.”
“Ah! Doing what?” asked the examiner, politely, but without interest.
The question hinted that in the talk in Britt's office the president had refrained from mention of Barnes, the broker. Vaniman decided instantly to respect Britt's reticence; the president had shown much caution the night before, even in regard to Squire Hexter. “Oh, merely running around on a little business of my own, Mr. Starr.”
Britt did not assist by any reference to his own share in the business. “We may as well start along toward the tavern, Starr.” The president took two steps toward the grille and addressed Vona. “I'm going to take Mr. Starr to the show this evening. I want him to see what smart girls we have in Egypt.”
Vona did not reply. She turned to Vaniman with the air of one who has suddenly been reminded of something forgotten in the stress of affairs. But before she had an opportunity to speak there was a tramping of hasty feet in the corridor and her father came in through the door that had been left ajar by Britt. “Good evening, all!” hailed Mr. Harnden, cheerily. “But, see here, Vona, my dear girl, we have been waiting supper a whole half hour. You've got scant time to eat and get on your stage togs.”
“This has been a pretty busy day in the bank, Harnden,” explained Britt. “Meet Mr. Starr, the bank examiner!”
“Oh, hullo, Starr!” cried Mr. Harnden, shoving out a friendly hand. “Heard you were in town. I know Starr,” he told Britt. “I know everybody in the state worth knowing. I told you so.”
Mr. Starr was not effusive; there was a hint of sarcasm in his inquiry as to how the invention business was coming along.
“Fine and flourishing!” announced Harnden, radiantly. Then he blurted some news which seemed to embarrass Britt very much; the news also provoked intense interest in Vaniman and the daughter. “All I've ever needed is backing, Starr. Now I've got it!” He clapped his hand on the banker's shoulder. “Here's my backer—good as a certified check. Hey, Tasper?”
“I'm—I'm always ready to help develop local talent,” Britt admitted, stammering, turning his back on the faces at the grille. “Starr, we'd better get along toward the tavern. I've had some poor luck with Files when he's off his schedule time!”
“The new combination of Harnden and Britt will make 'em sit up and take notice,” persisted the inventor. Forgetting Vona, desiring to impress a skeptic from the outside world, he followed Starr and the banker.
Vaniman and the girl listened to the optimist's fervid declarations till the slam of the outside door shut them off.
“That sounds like an interesting investment, Vona,” was the cashier's dry comment. “Mr. Britt seems to be swinging that watering pot of his new generosity around in pretty reckless fashion. I wonder what he'll do next!”
“Frank, I'm afraid!” She spoke in a whisper, staring hard at him. “No, no! Not what you think! I am not afraid because he is buying my father. If Mr. Britt thinks I can be included in that bargain he is wiser in making his money than he is in spending it. But there's something dreadful at work against us!” She had her hand on the page of an open ledger.
“The books can be straightened,” he insisted. “I can do it. I'll do it, if I have to call in every depositor's pass book.” He pointed to the vault. He was keeping the doors open till his work was done. “As long as the money is there, every cent of it, the final checking will show for itself. And the money will be there! I'm answering for that much! I propose to stay with it till that Barnes shows up.”
“I remember now that you told me he would come by the stage to-day.”
“So Britt gave me to understand, when I reported that he didn't come on the night train.”
“But I looked out of the window a little while ago—there was no passenger with Jones.”
“Has the stage come?” He glanced at the clock and blinked at the girl. “Well, I guess those books had me hypnotized!”
“Small wonder,” she said, bitterly. “I tell you I'm afraid, Frank! There's something we don't see through!”
“I don't dare to waste any more time wondering what the trouble is, Vona. I must get on to the job.”
“Both of us must.”
“It's time for you to be going home.”
“I'm going to stay here.”
“But, dear girl, there's the play! You have the leading part!”
“The words will stick in my throat and tears will blind me when I think of you working here alone. Frank, I insist! I will not leave you. They must postpone the play.”
He went to her and laid her hands, one upon the other, between his caressing palms. “The folks will be there—they are expecting the play—you must not disappoint them. It's as much your duty to go to the hall as it is mine to stay here with the books. And another thing! Think of the stories that will be set going, with the bank examiner here, if it's given out that the play had to be postponed because you couldn't leave the books. Such a report might start a run on the bank. Folks would be sure to think there's trouble here. You must go, Vona. It's for the sake of both of us.”
He went and brought her coat and hat.
“I can't go through with the play,” she wailed.
“We've got to use all the grit that's in us—whatever it is we're up against. Come! Hold out your arms!” He assisted her with the coat.
He drew her toward the door with his arm about her. “We'll make a good long day of it to-morrow—a holiday. George Washington never told a lie. Perhaps those books will come to themselves in the morning and realize what day it is and will stop lying! Now be brave!”
The kiss he gave her was long and tender; she clung to him. He released her, but she turned in the corridor and hurried back to him. “I shouldn't feel as I do—worried sick about you, Frank! The books must come out right, because both of us have been careful and honest.”
“Exactly! The thing will prove itself in the end. The money in that vault will talk for us! I'll do a little talking, myself, when—But no matter now!”
“You have suspicions! I know you have!”
“Naturally, not believing as much in ghosts or demons as I may have intimated to Starr.”
She looked apprehensively over her shoulder into the dark corners of the corridor. Then she drew his face down close to hers. “And it's hard to believe in the reformation of demons,” she whispered.
“I'm doing a whole lot of thinking, little girl. But I don't want to talk now. Do your best at the play. Hide your troubles behind smiles—that's real fighting! And we'll see what to-morrow will do for us.”
“Yes, to-morrow!” She ran away, but again she returned. “And nothing can happen to you here, in a quiet town like this, can it, Frank?” she asked.
“Nothing but what can be taken care of with that shotgun in the back room! But don't look frightened, precious girl! There's nothing—”
But even Vaniman was startled, the next moment. The girl leaped into his embrace and cowered. Something was clattering against a window of the bank. But only the mild face of Squire Hexter was framed in the lamplight cast on the window. He called, when he got a peep at the cashier, who came hastening back inside the grille: “Supper, boy! Supper! Come along!”
Frank threw up the window. “I'll make what's left over from my lunch do me, Squire. I'm tied up here with my work.”
“I'll allow the new Starr in our local sky to keep you away from euchre,” the Squire grumbled, “but I swanny if I'll let your interest in astronomy, all of a sudden, keep you away from the hot vittles you need. You come along with me to the house.”
“Squire, I can't lock the vault yet awhile. I don't want to leave things as they are. I must not.”
Vona had come to his side, she understood the nature of his anxiety. “I am just starting for my house, Squire Hexter. I'm going to hurry back with Frank's supper, so that he won't be bothered.”
“Bless your soul, sis, even Xoa will be perfectly satisfied with that arrangement when I explain,” said the Squire, gallantly. “I'm tempted to stay, myself, if Hebe is going to serve.” He backed away and did a grand salaam, flourishing the cane whose taps on the window had startled the lovers.
“You must not take the time, Vona,” protested the young man.
“I'll bring the supper when I'm on my way to the hall. Not another word! If I'm to lose the best part of my audience from the hall to-night, I can, at least, have that best part give me a compliment on my new gown—and give me,” she went on, reassuring him by a brave little smile, “a whole lot of courage by a dear kiss.”
She hurried away.
He was hard at work when she returned, carrying a wicker basket.
Again he protested because she was taking so much trouble, but she laid aside her coat and insisted on arranging the food on a corner of the table, a happy flush on her cheeks, giving him thanks with her eyes when he praised her gown.
“I'm going to look in on you after the show,” she declared. “Father will come with me.”
Vona remained with him until the wall clock warned her.
She asked him to wait a moment when he brought her wraps. She stood before him in her gay garb, wistfully appealing. “Frank, I was intending to have a little play of my own with you at the hall to-night. I was going to look right past that Durgin boy, straight down into your eyes, when I came to a certain place in the play. I was intending to let the folks of Egypt know something, providing they all don't know it by now. This is what I have to say, and now I'm saying it to the only audience I care for: