t the ring of faces,
pushed a brown, muscular left hand out on the table top, glancing at the
wrist watch there, and suggested brusquely,

"Think it over. My offer holds for fifteen minutes. Time to get at all
the angles of the case. Huh! Gentlemen! I seem to have started
something!"

For the directors and stockholders of the Van Ness Avenue Savings Bank
were at that moment almost as yappy and snappy as a wolf pack. Dykeman
wanted to know about the one hundred and eighty seven thousand odd
dollars not covered by Worth's offer--did they lose that? Knapp was
urging that Clayte's bond, when they'd collected, would shade the loss;
Whipple reminding them that they'd have to spend a good deal--maybe a
great deal--on the recovery of the suitcase; money that Worth Gilbert
would have to spend instead if they sold to him; and finally an ugly
mutter from somewhere that maybe young Gilbert wouldn't have to spend so
very much to recover that suitcase--maybe he wouldn't!

The tall young fellow looked thoughtfully at his watch now and again.
Cummings and I chipped into the thickest of the row and convinced them
that he meant what he said, not only by his offer, but by its time
limit.

"How about publicity, if this goes?" Whipple suddenly interrogated,
raising his voice to top the pack-yell. "Even with eight hundred
thousand dollars in our vaults, a run's not a thing that does a bank any
good. I suppose," stretching up his head to see across his noisy
associates, "I suppose, Captain Gilbert, you'll be retaining Boyne's
agency? In that case, do you give him the publicity he wants?"

"Course he does!" Dykeman hissed. "Can't you see? Damn fool wants his
name in the papers! Rotten story like this--about some lunatic buying a
suitcase with a million in it--would ruin any bank if it got into
print." Dykeman's breath gave out. "And--it's--it's--just the kind of
story the accursed yellow press would eat up. Let it alone, Whipple. Let
his damned offer alone. There's a joker in it somewhere."

"There won't be any offer in about three minutes," Cummings quietly
reminded them. "If you'd asked my opinion--and giving you opinions is
what you pay me a salary for--I'd have said close with him while you
can."

Whipple gave me an agonized glance. I nodded affirmatively. He put the
question to vote in a breath; the ayes had it, old Dykeman shouting
after them in an angry squeak.

"No! No!" and adding as he glared about him, "I'd like to be able