ays' visit to the lakes. He was
going down, he said, to Reedy Lake with Judge Archinard, an old
friend.

Now, Uncle Bushrod was treasurer of the Sons and Daughters of the
Burning Bush. Every association he belonged to made him treasurer
without hesitation. He stood AA1 in coloured circles. He was
understood among them to be Mr. Bushrod Weymouth, of the Weymouth
Bank.

The night following the day on which Mr. Robert mentioned his
intended fishing-trip the old man woke up and rose from his bed at
twelve o'clock, declaring he must go down to the bank and fetch the
pass-book of the Sons and Daughters, which he had forgotten to bring
home. The bookkeeper had balanced it for him that day, put the
cancelled checks in it, and snapped two elastic bands around it. He
put but one band around other pass-books.

Aunt Malindy objected to the mission at so late an hour, denouncing
it as foolish and unnecessary, but Uncle Bushrod was not to be
deflected from duty.

"I done told Sister Adaline Hoskins," he said, "to come by here for
dat book to-morrer mawnin' at sebin o'clock, for to kyar' it to de
meetin' of de bo'd of 'rangements, and dat book gwine to be here
when she come."

So, Uncle Bushrod put on his old brown suit, got his thick hickory
stick, and meandered through the almost deserted streets of
Weymouthville. He entered the bank, unlocking the side door, and
found the pass-book where he had left it, in the little back room
used for consultations, where he always hung his coat. Looking about
casually, he saw that everything was as he had left it, and was
about to start for home when he was brought to a standstill by the
sudden rattle of a key in the front door. Some one came quickly in,
closed the door softly, and entered the counting-room through the
door in the iron railing.

That division of the bank's space was connected with the back room
by a narrow passageway, now in deep darkness.

Uncle Bushrod, firmly gripping his hickory stick, tiptoed gently
up this passage until he could see the midnight intruder into the
sacred precincts of the Weymouth Bank. One dim gas-jet burned there,
but even in its nebulous light he perceived at once that the prowler
was the bank's president.

Wondering, fearful, undecided what to do, the old coloured man stood
motionless in the gloomy strip of hallway, and waited developments.

The vault, with its big iron door, was opposite him. Inside that
was the safe, holding the papers of