are pleased to be facetious, sir," the teller replied. His lip
curled; he turned away, tilting his chin with conscious dignity.

Mr. Johnson tapped the sill with the finger of authority.

"Young man, do you want I should throw this bank out of the window?" he
said severely. "Because if you don't, you uncover some one a grown man
can do business with. You're suffering from delusions of grandeur, fair
young sir. I almost believe you have permitted yourself to indulge in
some levity with me--me, P. Wallace Johnson! And if I note any more
light-hearted conduct on your part I'll shake myself and make merry with
you till you'll think the roof has done fell on you. Now you dig up the
Grand Panjandrum, with the little round button on top, or I'll come in
unto you! Produce! Trot!"

The cashier's dignity abated. Mr. Johnson was, by repute, no stranger
to him. Not sorry to pass this importunate borrower on to other hands,
he tapped at a door labeled "Vice-President," opened it, and said
something in a low voice. From this room a man emerged at once--Marsh,
vice-president, solid of body, strong of brow. Clenched between heavy
lips was a half-burned cigar, on which he puffed angrily.

"Well, Johnson, what's this?" he demanded.

"You got money to sell? I want to buy some. Let me come in and talk it up
to you."

"Let him in, Hudson," said Marsh. His cigar took on a truculent angle as
he listened to Johnson's proposition.

It appeared that Johnson's late outburst of petulance had cleared his
bosom of much perilous stuff. His crisp tones carried a suggestion of
lingering asperity, but otherwise he bore himself with becoming modesty
and diffidence in the presence of the great man. He stated his needs
briskly and briefly, as before.

"Money is tight," said Marsh curtly.

He scowled; he thrust his hands into his pockets as if to guard them; he
rocked back upon his heels; his eyes were leveled at a point in space
beyond Pete's shoulder; he clamped his cigar between compressed lips and
puffed a cloud of smoke from a corner of a mouth otherwise grimly tight.

Mr. Peter Johnson thought again of that unlit cigar, came swiftly to
tiptoe, and puffed a light from the glowing tip of Marsh's cigar before
that astonished person could withdraw his gaze from the contemplation of
remote infinities. The banker recoiled, flushed and frowning; the teller
bent hastily over his ledger.

Johnson, puffing luxuriously, renewed his argument with a g