forgot to tell you that the bank's guarantee company and the
general manager of the bank itself have dunned me for your part of the
Banfield loss, fifty dollars. I laughed at them and told them to sue."

The postscript took Evan's mind back. It caused a burning in him that
he knew must some day flare up. Unable to quench the resentment that
filled him he bought some fruit and ate it as he walked along Wall
Street, westward.

"Great heavens!" he muttered, waving his hand toward the marble halls
of finance around him, "my country's got you backed into East River
when it comes to a combination of Trusts!"

A few minutes after muttering this soliloquy he was in the crowds on
Broad Street, directly opposite the Stock Exchange. A newsy thrust a
paper into his hand, which he took and glanced at automatically. The
first thing to catch his eye was a small headline over a news-item in
one corner of the front page:

"CANADIAN BANKCLERK SUICIDES."

Evan felt his heart stop and a sickening shudder ran through him as he
read:

"Because he lost at the races and could not return money secretly
borrowed from his cash, Sidney Levison, of the S---- Bank, Toronto,
shot himself last night."

Of all the many thousands of New Yorkers who read that paragraph Evan
Nelson, perhaps, was the only one who fully comprehended the meaning of
it. He saw, as in a looking-glass, the gloomy series of steps down
which the teller had come to where he lay, a suicide.

CHAPTER XIX.

_FAR-AWAY GREEN FIELDS._

A germ began to work in Evan's mind. It must have been some relation
to the garden-grubs that had infested Jim Japers' vineyard, for it
showed a predilection for fresh air and outside work. Two
incidents--the firing by the cashier of a clerk ahead of Nelson, and
the receiving of a letter from A. P. Henty--did not help matters any.

Henty's handwriting had such a substantial appearance it seemed to
indicate that some men were blessed with big fists to fall back on in
case their fingers lost employment. A. P.'s composition, too, was
solid and matter-of-fact; there were no flourishes, except occasional
slang; the letter was plainly the product of a free mind and a steady
nerve.

When the clerk who was discharged approached Evan with a smile and
said: "Well, kiddo, you're next in line," Evan wondered why the fellow
was so unconcerned about it. He asked him.

"Oh," answered the clerk, "we're used to that here, in New York.