her hard on Millard, too; for though he enjoyed his success in an
undertaking so delicate, he regretted two dinner parties and one
desirable reception that he was compelled to forego in order to carry on
his negotiations out of bank hours.

The day before the directors met, Farnsworth confided to Millard his
intention to have him made assistant cashier. Millard said that if Mr.
Masters and the directors should agree to that he would be very well
pleased. Considering his evident loyalty to Masters, Farnsworth did not
think it wise to tell Millard anything further.

In the board of directors Meadows sat with a more than usually defiant
face--with a face which showed premonitions of exultation. Farnsworth
felt sure of his game, but he found breathing so laborious that he did
not show any emotion. Masters thought it best to soften the humiliation
of his associate as much as possible by forestalling his proposition. So
at the first moment he suggested to the directors that the bank needed
new force, on account both of his own advancing years and of Mr.
Farnsworth's ill-health, much aggravated by his excessive industry. He
therefore proposed to have Mr. Hilbrough made vice-president with the
same salary as that paid to the president, to add a thousand to the
cashier's salary, and to promote Mr. Millard to be assistant cashier on
a salary of five thousand a year. He said that the prosperity of the
bank justified the increased expense, and that the money would be well
invested.

Meadows opposed this plan as extravagant. He favored the promotion of
Mr. Millard, and the promotion of Mr. Farnsworth to be vice-president,
leaving the cashiership vacant for a while. But the directors,
accustomed to follow the lead of Masters and Hilbrough, and suspicious
of Meadows as habitually factious, voted the president's proposition.

Farnsworth went home and to bed. Then he asked for a vacation and went
South. The bank officers sent him a handsome bouquet when he sailed away
on the Savannah steamer; for commerce by the very rudeness of its
encounters makes men forgiving. In business it is unprofitable to
cherish animosities, and contact with a great variety of character makes
business men usually more tolerant than men of secluded lives.
Farnsworth, for his part, was as pleased as a child might have been with
the attention paid him on his departure, and Mrs. Farnsworth was
delighted that her husband had consented to take rest, and "make the