A SCRAP OF PAPER When Duncan assumed control of the bank as its president, his first care was to acquaint himself minutely with its condition. In general he found its affairs in excellent shape, for Tandy was a skillful banker and, on the whole, a prudent one. There were many small loans to local shopkeepers which Duncan could not approve, and these he called in as they fell due, refusing to renew them. Beyond such matters he found nothing wrong till he came to examine the record of Tandy's own dealings with the bank. There he found that in carrying on his multifarious enterprises, Tandy had been in the habit of borrowing and using the bank's funds in ways forbidden by the law of national banking. Had Tandy anticipated his own removal from control he would doubtless have set his account in order so that no complaint could be made. As it was, Duncan found that he was at that very time heavily in debt to the institution for borrowings made in evasion though possibly not in direct violation of a law carefully framed for the protection of stockholders and depositors. The matter troubled Duncan sorely, and acting upon the resolution he had formed with regard to his relations with Barbara, he told her of it. "I really don't know what to do," he said in a troubled tone. "Of course the money is perfectly safe. Tandy is good for two or three times the amount. And I learn that it is a practice among bank officers sometimes to stretch their authority and borrow their own bank's funds in this way." "You say the thing is a violation of the law?" asked Barbara, going straight to the marrow of the matter after her uniform fashion. "In effect, yes. I am not sure that it could be called a positive violation of law--it is so well hedged about with little fictions and pretenses--but it is plainly an evasion, and one which might get the bank into trouble with the authorities at Washington." "You mean that it is something which the law intends to forbid?" "Yes. It is in violation of the spirit of the law." "Then I don't see why you should have any doubt as to what you ought to do." "It is only that under the circumstances, if I press Tandy and call in these loans, it might look like an unworthy indulgence in spite on my part." "I think you have no right to consider that. You have taken an oath to obey the law in the conduct of the bank, and----" "How did you know that, Barbara?" The girl flushed and hesitated. At last she said: "I've been reading the national banking laws." "What in the world did you do that for?" "Why, I'm to help, you know. So as soon as I heard you were to be president of the bank I asked Mrs. Hallam to get Captain Hallam to lend me the books." Duncan smiled and kept silence for a while. "Was that wrong, or very foolish, Guilford? I can really understand the book."