on had never been sold. And also, by considerable effort,
he had succeeded in securing Cowperwood, Sr., a place as a clerk in a
bank. For the latter, since the day of his resignation from the Third
National had been in a deep, sad quandary as to what further to do with
his life. His son's disgrace! The horror of his trial and incarceration.
Since the day of Frank's indictment and more so, since his sentence and
commitment to the Eastern Penitentiary, he was as one who walked in a
dream. That trial! That charge against Frank! His own son, a convict in
stripes--and after he and Frank had walked so proudly in the front rank
of the successful and respected here. Like so many others in his hour of
distress, he had taken to reading the Bible, looking into its pages for
something of that mind consolation that always, from youth up, although
rather casually in these latter years, he had imagined was to be found
there. The Psalms, Isaiah, the Book of Job, Ecclesiastes. And for
the most part, because of the fraying nature of his present ills, not
finding it.

But day after day secreting himself in his room--a little hall-bedroom
office in his newest home, where to his wife, he pretended that he
had some commercial matters wherewith he was still concerned--and once
inside, the door locked, sitting and brooding on all that had befallen
him--his losses; his good name. Or, after months of this, and because of
the new position secured for him by Wingate--a bookkeeping job in one
of the outlying banks--slipping away early in the morning, and returning
late at night, his mind a gloomy epitome of all that had been or yet
might be.

To see him bustling off from his new but very much reduced home at half
after seven in the morning in order to reach the small bank, which was
some distance away and not accessible by street-car line, was one of
those pathetic sights which the fortunes of trade so frequently offer.
He carried his lunch in a small box because it was inconvenient to
return home in the time allotted for this purpose, and because his new
salary did not permit the extravagance of a purchased one. It was his
one ambition now to eke out a respectable but unseen existence until he
should die, which he hoped would not be long. He was a pathetic
figure with his thin legs and body, his gray hair, and his snow-white
side-whiskers. He was very lean and angular, and, when confronted by a
difficult problem, a little uncertain or vague in hi