t you might put them back in the morning. Every one does it.
It's part of the game."

"But suppose we lost?" asked John.

"You can't," said Prescott. "Cotton is sure to go up. It's throwing away
the chance of your life."

John said he couldn't do such a thing, but when he returned to the
office the cashier told him that a merger had been planned between their
company and another--a larger one. John knew what that meant well
enough--half the clerks would lose their positions. He was getting
thirty-five dollars a week, had married a young wife, and, as he had
told the magnate, he "needed it all." That night as he put the
securities from the "loan cage" back in the vault the bonds burned his
fingers. They were lying around loose, no good to anybody, and only two
of them, overnight maybe, would make him independent of salaries and
mergers--a free man and his own master.

The vault was in the basement just below the loan cage. It was some
twenty feet long and ten wide. There were three tiers of boxes with
double combination doors. In the extreme left-hand corner was the "loan
box." Near it were two other boxes in which the securities of certain
customers on deposit were kept. John had individual access to the loan
box and the two others--one of which contained the collateral which
secured loans that were practically permanent. He thus had within his
control negotiable bonds of over a million dollars in value. The
securities were in piles, strapped with rubber bands, and bore slips on
which were written the names of the owners. Every morning John carried
up all these piles to the loan cage--except the securities on deposit.
At the end of the day he carried all back himself and tossed them into
the boxes. When the interest coupons on the deposited bonds had to be
cut he carried these, also, upstairs. At night the vault was secured by
two doors, one with a combination lock and the other with a time lock.
It was as safe as human ingenuity could make it. By day it had only a
steel-wire gate which could be opened with a key. No attendant was
stationed at the door. If John wanted to get in, all he had to do was to
ask the person who had the key to open it. The reason John had the
combination to these different boxes was in order to save the loan clerk
the trouble of going downstairs to get the collateral himself.

Next day when John went out to lunch he put two bonds belonging to a
customer in his pocket. He did not intend to