a column of figures.

"Too bad nothing. See what it has done for you, to stay so long. I laid
out old Goodchild, and the only reason why I stopped was I thought he'd
get apoplexy. But say, the daughter-- She is some peach, believe me. I
called him papa-in-law to his face. You should have seen him!"

Billy shivered. It was even worse than any human being could have
imagined.

"Good-by, Rutgers," he whispered out of a corner of his mouth, never
taking his eyes from the ledger.

"You poor old-- No, Billy! Thank you a thousand times for showing me
Hendrik Rutgers at sixty. Thanks!" And he walked out of the bank
overflowing with gratitude toward Fate that had hung him into the middle
of the street. From there he could look at the free sun all day; and of
nights, at the unfettered stars. It was better than looking at the
greedy hieroglyphics wherewith a stupid few enslaved the stupider many.

He was free!

He stood for a moment on the steps of the main entrance. For two years
he had looked from the world into the bank. But now he looked from the
bank out--on the world. And that was why that self-same world suddenly
changed its aspect. The very street looked different; the sidewalk wore
an air of strangeness; the crowd was not at all the same.

He drew in a deep breath. The April air vitalized his blood.

This new world was a world to conquer. He must fight!

The nearest enemy was the latest. This is always true. Therefore Hendrik
Rutgers, in thinking of fighting, thought of the bank and the people who
made of banks temples to worship in.

All he needed now was an excuse. There was no doubt that he would get
it. Some people call this process the autohypnosis of the great.

Two sandwich-men slouched by in opposite directions. One of them stopped
and from the edge of the sidewalk stared at a man cleaning windows on
the fourteenth story of a building across the way. The other wearily
shuffled southward. Above his head swayed an enormous amputated foot.

Rutgers himself walked briskly to the south. To avoid a collision with a
hurrying stenographer-girl--if it had been a male he would have used a
short jab--he unavoidably jostled the chiropodist's advertisement into
the gutter. The sandwich-man looked meekly into Rutgers's pugnacious
face and started to cross the street.

Hendrik felt he should apologize, but before his sense of duty could
crystallize into action the man was too far away. So Hendrik turned
back. The