ly competitors, had
given him his start; even now the strength of the Interprovincial lay
in its popularity among workmen and farmers, while its aggregate of
small savings accounts was tremendous. The people trusted the
Interprovincial because they had seen it grow and knew that it was
administered honestly. "Catch 'Old Nat' having anything to do with the
tricks of high finance!" said they, confidently, and many were the
stories which went the rounds of how the "old-fashioned" financier had
allowed sentiment to "interfere" with business. And the business had
grown apace.

Because of this ingrained sentimental streak in his make-up and because
of this inherent honesty he had created some enemies. There were those
who looked hungrily in the direction of the Interprovincial and
imagined what could be accomplished in a very big way in several
different directions if only the man in control of the stock were--say,
a little more modern. If it were not for the close tab which that
energetic young secretary kept upon things, Lawson would have run the
concern into the ditch long ago, whispered the ambitious ones. The
young and energetic secretary, J. C. Nickleby, may have been the first
to whisper it--very confidentially, of course. For it would ill become
so promising a young financier as J. Cuthbert Nickleby to be guilty of
ingratitude, and there had been one raw wet night in the spring of a
year long past when Nathaniel Lawson had rescued a miserable travesty
of a man from the gutter--a night that Nickleby, once his benefactor
had set him firmly upon his feet with a new lease of life, no doubt had
schooled himself to forget for all time.

At any rate there had come an annual meeting at which Nat Lawson found
himself in a quandary. It followed on the heels of a rumor that it was
the desire of certain shareholders to inject some "new blood," and
thereby new life, into the loan company--that it would be a good thing,
in short, for the "revered old Chief" to retire to a pedestal where he
could sit as inanimate as a bronze bust upon the official label,
"Honorary President," while a younger man took upon his shoulders the
burden of the expanded business, and so forth.

The campaign against him had been of a most insidious character and
Lawson had pretended with dignity to ignore it, even while his
resentment grew to the proportions of great indignation. And all the
time he was worried because he could not find a certain