twenty-five, breaking under the strain of their first
knowledge of overwhelming ruin, an indiscriminate convulsive mass
pouring in and out. Then a door opened and a secretary issued him in.
Mr. Swift received him with an agitated clutch of the hand, and valuing
the precious seconds, without waiting for his questions, burst out:

"Mr. Crocker, it's absolutely humanly impossible for me to do what Miss
Drake requested. We disposed yesterday of over forty thousand dollars.
To sell now would be a financial slaughter to which I simply will not
give my permission. Moreover, it's all very well to talk of selling, but
who's going to buy?"

"If you can't sell," said Bojo, gloomily, "Miss Drake would like to
know what you could raise on her holdings as security."

"She wants to know?" said Mr. Swift, on edge with the anxiety of twenty
operations to be safe-guarded, "I'll tell you. Not a hundred thousand
dollars, nor ten thousand. There isn't an institution that would dare
weaken its cash supply to-day on any security offered. Mr. Crocker, say
for me that I absolutely and completely refuse to offer a single
security." A door opened and back of the secretary the faces of two new
visitors were already to be seen. Mr. Swift with scant ceremony seized
his hand and dismissed him. "It can't be done, that's all; it can't be
done."

Bojo went out and telephoned the result. He even tried, though he knew
the futility of the attempt, to place a loan at two banks where he was
known, one his own and the other the depository for the Crocker Mills.
At the first he got no further than a subordinate, who threw up his
hands at the first mention of his plan. At the latter he gained a
moment's opportunity to state his demand to the vice-president, who had
known him from childhood. The refusal was as instantaneous. The banks
were coming to the aid of no one, frightened for their own security. He
even attempted to call up his father on long distance, but after long,
tedious waits he was unable to locate him. What he would have asked of
him he did not quite know, only that he was seeking frantically some
means, some way, to come to the assistance of the girl he loved, even
though in his heart he knew the futility of her attempt; perhaps even
despite his admiration for her unselfishness, glad that the sacrifice
could not be made. He went up later in the afternoon to explain to her
all he had tried to do, to get her to go for a short ride up the river