n yere, and dat was de day dat Gadgem man come snuffin'
roun'. Trouble comin'."

Harry had now begun to take in the situation. It was evidently a matter
of some moment or Pawson would not have been consulted.

"I'll go down myself, Todd," he said with sudden resolve.

"Better lem'me tell him you're yere, Marse Harry."

"No, I'll go now," and he turned on his heel and descended the front
steps.

On the street side of the house, level with the bricks, was a door
opening into a low-ceiled, shabbily furnished room, where in the old
days General Dorsey Temple, as has been said, shared his toddies with
his cronies. There he found St. George seated at a long table piled
high with law books and papers--the top covered with a green baize cloth
embroidered with mice holes and decorated with ink stains. Beside him
was a thin, light-haired, young man, with a long, flexible neck and
abnormally high forehead, over-doming a shrewd but not unkindly face.
The two were poring over a collection of papers.

The young lawyer rose to his feet, a sickly, deferential smile playing
along his straight lips. Young aristocrats of Harry's blood and breeding
did not often darken Pawson's door, and he was extremely anxious that
his guest should in some way be made aware of his appreciation of that
fact. St. George did not move, nor did he take any other notice of
the boy's appearance than to fasten his eyes upon him for a moment in
recognition of his presence.

But Harry could not wait.

"Todd has just told me, Uncle George, that"--he caught the grave
expression on Temple's face--"Why!--Uncle George--there isn't anything
the matter, is there? It isn't true that the--"

St. George raised his head: "What isn't true, Harry?"

"That the Patapsco Bank is in trouble?"

"No, I don't think so. The bank, so far as I know, is all right; it's
the depositors who are in trouble," and one of his quaint smiles lighted
up his face.

"Broken!--failed!" cried Harry, still in doubt as to the extent of the
catastrophe, but wishing to be sympathetic and proportionably astounded
as any well-bred young man should be when his best friend was unhappy.

"I'm afraid it is, Harry--in fact I know it is--bankrupt in character as
well as in balances--a bad-smelling, nasty mess, to tell you the truth.
That's not only my own opinion, but the opinion of every man whom I
have seen, and there was quite an angry mob when I reached the teller's
window this morning. That i