Mr. Thorndike suppressed an exclamation. He wanted to protest, but his clear mind showed him that there was nothing against which, with reason, he could protest. He could not complain because these people were not apparently aware of the sacrifice he was making. He had come among them to perform a kindly act. He recognized that he must not stultify it by a show of irritation. He had precipitated himself into a game of which he did not know the rules. That was all. Next time he would know better. Next time he would send a clerk. But he was not without a sense of humor, and the situation as it now was forced upon him struck him as amusing. He laughed good-naturedly and reached for the desk telephone. “May I use this?” he asked. He spoke to the Wall Street office. He explained he would be a few minutes late. He directed what should be done if the market opened in a certain way. He gave rapid orders on many different matters, asked to have read to him a cablegram he expected from Petersburg, and one from Vienna. “They answer each other,” was his final instruction. “It looks like peace.” Mr. Andrews with genial patience had remained silent. Now he turned upon his visitors. A Levantine, burly, unshaven, and soiled, towered truculently above him. Young Mr. Andrews with his swivel chair tilted back, his hands clasped behind his head, his cigarette hanging from his lips, regarded the man dispassionately. “You gotta hell of a nerve to come to see me,” he commented cheerfully. To Mr. Thorndike, the form of greeting was novel. So greatly did it differ from the procedure of his own office, that he listened with interest. “Was it you,” demanded young Andrews, in a puzzled tone, “or your brother who tried to knife me?” Mr. Thorndike, unaccustomed to cross the pavement to his office unless escorted by bank messengers and plain-clothes men, felt the room growing rapidly smaller; the figure of the truculent Greek loomed to heroic proportions. The hand of the banker went vaguely to his chin, and from there fell to his pearl pin, which he hastily covered. “Get out!” said young Andrews, “and don’t show your face here--” The door slammed upon the flying Greek. Young Andrews swung his swivel chair so that, over his shoulder, he could see Mr. Thorndike. “I don’t like his face,” he explained. A kindly eyed, sad woman with a basket on her knee smiled upon Andrews with the familiarity of an old acquaintance. “Is that woman going to get a divorce from my son,” she asked, “now that he’s in trouble?” “Now that he’s in Sing Sing?” corrected Mr. Andrews. “I HOPE so! She deserves it. That son of yours, Mrs. Bernard,” he declared emphatically, “is no good!”