ss. Wix had gone out,
and Gilman was still holding in his nerveless fingers the check that
had saved him, when Smalley appeared at his side.

"Ah," said Smalley; "I see you have the check I gave Mr. Wix. Did he
deposit?"

"No, sir," replied Gilman, in a low voice; "he took currency."

Mr. Smalley visibly winced.

"A bill of exchange might have done him just as well," he protested.
"No non-employing person has need of actual currency in that amount.
I'm afraid young Wix is very extravagant--very. By the way, Mr.
Gilman, I have been forced, for protection and very much against my
will, to take some stock in an enterprise with which I can not have my
name associated for very obvious business reasons; so I have taken the
liberty of having the stock made out in your name," and, before young
Gilman's eyes, he spread his twenty-five-share certificate of The La
Salle Grain and Stock Brokerage Company.

Gilman, pale before, went suddenly ghastly. The blow of mockery had
come too soon upon the heels of his relief.

"I can't have it," he managed to stammer through parched lips. "I must
refuse, sir. I--I can not be connected in any way with that business,
Mr. Smalley. I--I abhor it. Never, as long as I live--"

Suddenly the fish-white face and staring eyes of Gilman were not in
the line of Mr. Smalley's astonished vision, for Gilman had slid to
the floor, between his high stool and his desk. Sam Glidden, coming
into the bank a moment after, found Smalley working feverishly over
the prostrate form of his feebly reviving clerk.

CHAPTER V

JONATHAN REUBEN WIX CASTS ASIDE HIS ONLY
HANDICAP AND DISAPPEARS FOR EVER

Just as Jonathan Reuben Wix reached his home, a delivery man was
taking in at the front door a fine dresser trunk. On the porch stood a
new alligator traveling-bag, and a big, new suit-case of thick sole
leather, trimmed profusely with the most expensive knobs and clamps,
and containing as elaborate a toilet set as is made for the use of
men. In the hall he found five big pasteboard boxes from his tailor.
He had the trunk and the suit-case and the traveling-bag delivered up
to his room; the clothing he carried up himself.

That morning he had dressed himself in new linen throughout. Now he
took off the suit he wore and put on one of the new business suits. He
opened half a dozen huge bundles of haberdashery which he had
purchased within the past week, and began packing them in his trunk:
underwear, s