d, or merely ludicrous, with a
vividness of perception which failed me when I remembered the features
of my own wife.

"We can pay them off slowly till three o'clock," said Bingley, the
vice-president, whom I found, with five or six of the directors, already
in my office. "I've got only one paying teller's window open. The
trouble, of course, began with the small accounts, of which we carry
such a blamed lot. Mark my words, it is the little depositor that
endangers a bank."

He looked nervous, and swallowed hastily while he talked, as if he had
just rushed in from breakfast, with his last mouthful still unchewed. As
I entered and faced the men sitting in different attitudes, but all
wearing the same strained and helpless expression, a feeling of
irritation swept over me, and I paused in the middle of the floor, with
my hat and a folded newspaper in my hand.

"A quarter of a million in hard cash would tide us over, I believe,"
pursued Bingley, swallowing faster; "but the question is how in thunder
are we to lay hands on it by nine o'clock to-morrow morning?"

I drew out my watch, and with the simple, mechanical action, I was
conscious of an immediate quickening of the blood, a clearing of the
brain. A certain readiness for decision, a power of dealing with an
emergency, of handling a crisis, a response of pulse and brain to the
call for action, stood me service now as in every difficult instant of
my career. They were picked business men and shrewd financiers before
me, yet I was aware that I dominated them, all and each, by some quality
of force, of aggressiveness, of inflated self-confidence. The secret of
my success, I had once said to the General, was that I began to get cool
when I saw other people getting scared.

"It is now a quarter of ten, gentlemen," I said, "and I pledge my word
of honour that I will have a quarter of a million dollars in bank by ten
o'clock to-morrow."

"For God's sake, Ben, where is it coming from?" demanded Judge Kenton,
an old Confederate, with the solemn face I had sometimes watched him
assume in church during the singing of the hymns. As I looked at him the
humour of his expression struck me, and I broke into a laugh.

"I beg your pardon," I returned the next minute, "but I'll get
it--somewhere--if it's in the city."

One of the men--I forget which, though I remember quite clearly that he
wore a red necktie--got up from the table and slapped me on the
shoulder.

"Go ahead, Be