Fred, run over to the college and bring all the boys you can find at
Mill's Field. Bring them up Main Street singing, and send a flying wedge
through the mob;--that will smash it. Beat it, before the boys hear the
row and mix in!"

Fred was off for the athletic field before she had finished speaking,
and Phil sought the side door of Montgomery's Bank.

The throng at the intersection of Franklin Street and Main faced the
First National. When the court-house clock boomed three the clerks
inside made an effort to close the doors, and this had provoked a sharp
encounter with the waiting depositors on the bank steps. The crowd
yelled as it surged in sympathy with the effort to hold the doors open.
Some one threw a stone that struck the window in the middle of
"National" in the sign, and this caused an outbreak of derisive cheers.
An intoxicated man on the steps turned round with difficulty and waved
his hat.

"Come on, boys; we'll bust the safe and find out whether they've got any
money or not."

Some of those who had gained entrance to the bank came out by the side
door, and this served to divert attention to Franklin Street for a
moment. There were cries that a woman who had received her money had
been robbed, and this increased the uproar.

When Amzi took a last survey from his bank steps at three o'clock, some
one yelled, "Hello, Amzi!" A piece of brick flung with an aim worthy of
a nobler cause whizzed past his head and struck the door-frame with a
sharp thwack and blur of dust. Amzi looked down at the missile with
pained surprise and kicked it aside. His clerks besought him to come in
out of harm's way; and yet no man in Montgomery had established a better
right than he to stand exactly where he stood and view contemporaneous
history in the making.

Howls and cat-calls followed the casting of the brick. Amzi lifted his
hand to stay the tumult, but in his seersucker coat and straw hat his
appearance was calculated to provoke merriment.

"Shoot the hat! Where's your earmuffs?" they jeered.

He could not make himself heard, and even if his voice had been equal to
the occasion no one was in humor to listen to him. Bankers were
unpopular in Montgomery that afternoon. No one had ever believed before
that Amzi was capable of taking unfair advantage of his fellow-men; and
yet Waterman's hearers were circulating the report in Main Street that
Amzi had been buying Sycamore bonds at an infamously low price.

He flouris