lation or advice.

"Do you suppose I can help you?" queried John, sympathetically.

"I'm going to tell you about it, anyway, and see what you think. Maybe
it looks pretty queer to you that I should come here and make a
confidant of you when I hardly know you, but I have all kinds of faith
in you, and this matter touches people I like immensely, and I know
you'll regard all I say as confidential."

He stopped, and let his fat hands stray vaguely over his knees.

"Certainly I'll keep still, Dillard, and I'll be glad to help you all I
can."

"You see it's about the Dudleys. I don't suppose you know it, but
they're poor as Job's turkey. All they've got is that house and an acre
or two of ground and that horse, and--fifty shares of bank stock. The
old man bought this stock when he got too bad off to manage his racers
properly--sold them, you see, and invested his money this way, so that
he wouldn't have any worry, and it'd bring 'em in just enough to live
on. The bank's boomin', doin' the best business it ever has, and has
been declaring a five per cent, semi-annual dividend. That's ten per
cent, a year on the Major's investment, which means five hundred dollars
per annum for him and Miss Julia to live on--nothin' handsome, you see,
but it'll keep 'em from gettin' hungry. Now these people are my friends,
and I hate to see 'em suffer."

"Well, what's the worry? Is the bank insolvent? You just said it was
doing a fine business."

"Best in its history! There's a dividend due the last of this month, but
it's not going to be paid!"

Glenning wheeled from where he was bending over his open trunk.

"Why isn't it going to be paid?"

"I'll tell you."

Dillard looked around to see that no doors were open, then leaned
forward and spoke in a loud whisper.

"The president of our bank is a Mr. Marston. He's rich as Jersey cream,
and he owns the bulk of stock in the institution. He hates the Dudleys
like snakes, and he never loses a chance to do something that'll hurt
'em. The last meeting of the directors was the one at which the six
months' dividend should have been declared. We've earned it all right,
and more besides. There's no just reason under the sun why it shouldn't
have been paid. The whole board was in favor of it but Marston. They had
a warm session. They hold their meetings in a back room at the bank, and
while it was a closed meeting, I knew that an argument was in progress,
for they were there an hour and a ha