fascination, in the hesitation of a stranger of a higher class who
entered the bank that rainy morning and finally tendered his card to the
important negro messenger.
The card preceded him through noiselessly swinging doors and across
heavily carpeted passages until it reached the inner core of Mr. James
Stacy's private offices, and was respectfully laid before him. He was
not alone. At his side, in an attitude of polite and studied expectancy,
stood a correct-looking young man, for whom Mr. Stacy was evidently
writing a memorandum. The stranger glanced furtively at the card with a
curiosity hardly in keeping with his suggested good breeding; but Stacy
did not look at it until he had finished his memorandum.
"There," he said, with business decision, "you can tell your people that
if we carry their new debentures over our limit we will expect a larger
margin. Ditches are not what they were three years ago when miners were
willing to waste their money over your rates. They don't gamble THAT WAY
any more, and your company ought to know it, and not gamble themselves
over that prospect." He handed the paper to the stranger, who bowed over
it with studied politeness, and backed towards the door. Stacy took up
the waiting card, read it, said to the messenger, "Show him in," and
in the same breath turned to his guest: "I say, Van Loo, it's George
Barker! You know him."
"Yes," said Van Loo, with a polite hesitation as he halted at the door.
"He was--I think--er--in your employ at Heavy Tree Hill."
"Nonsense! He was my partner. And you must have known him since at
Boomville. Come! He got forty shares of Ditch stock--through you--at
110, which were worth about 80! SOMEBODY must have made money enough by
it to remember him."
"I was only speaking of him socially," said Van Loo, with a deprecating
smile. "You know he married a young woman--the hotel-keeper's daughter,
who used to wait at the table--and after my mother and sister came out
to keep house for me at Boomville it was quite impossible for me to see
much of him, for he seldom went out without his wife, you know."
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