he 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 a