steal them or even to
borrow them. It was done almost automatically. His will seemed
subjugated to the idea that they were to all intents and purposes _his_
bonds to do as he liked with. He wanted the feeling of
bonds-in-his-pocket. As he walked along the street to the restaurant, it
seemed quite natural that they should be there. They were nearly as safe
with him as lying around loose in the cage or chucked into a box in the
vault. Prescott joined him, full of his new idea that cotton was going
to jump overnight.

"If you only had a couple of bonds," he sighed.

Then somehow John's legs and arms grew weak. He seemed to disintegrate
internally. He tried to pull himself together, but he had lost control
of his muscles. He became a dual personality. His own John heard
Prescott's John say quite naturally:

"I can let you have two bonds, but mind we get them back to-morrow, or
anyhow the day after."

John's John felt the other John slip the two American Navigation 4s
under the table and Prescott's fingers close upon them. Then came a
period of hypnotic paralysis. The flywheel of his will-power hung on a
dead centre. Almost instantly he became himself again.

"Give 'em back," he whispered hoarsely. "I didn't mean you should keep
them," and he reached anxiously across the table. But Prescott was on
his feet, half-way toward the door.

"Don't be a fool, Smith," he laughed. "What's the matter with you? It's
a cinch. Go back and forget it." He shot out of the door and down the
street.

John followed, dazed and trembling with horror at what he had done. He
went back to the cage and remained the rest of the day in terror lest
the broker who owned the two bonds should pay off his loan. But at the
same time he had quickly made up his mind what he should do in that
event. There was more than one loan secured by American Navigation 4s.
He loosened a couple in one of the other piles. If the first broker came
in he would take two bonds from one of these. But the broker did not
come in.

That night John wandered the streets till nearly daylight. He saw
himself arrested, ruined, in prison. Utterly fagged next morning, he
called up Prescott on the telephone and begged him to return the bonds.
Prescott laughed at his fears and assured him that everything was all
right. Cotton was sure to go up. An hour later the broker who owned the
bonds came in and took up his loan, and John removed two American
Navigation 4s from another bundl