"Wait a minute, Mr. Black. You can't see it in your present frame of mind, and you probably think we are very hard to come down on you like this, when you have been in business only such a short time. That is the reason we take this stand. Had you been in business for some years we should have known you inside and out, and would have known just what to do. Now, if your credit is really good in the town, and you have anything back of you, you can borrow the money and give me my check before I leave town." "Great guns, man," I cried, "to whom do you think I can go to borrow that amount!" "Why," said he, "haven't you got a bank account here?" "Yes," said I, "but they won't lend me any money!" Mr. Peck's face seemed suddenly to harden, and, putting his fingers on the desk, he said: "Mr. Black, we are simply wasting time. What do you think a bank's for? A bank isn't a mere safe deposit for money! It's a bank's business to lend money! Better go and see your bank now. I'll be back in two hours!" Without another word he turned and left the store. At that I completely lost my temper. "I'll be damned if I will!" I cried to Larsen, who was standing by. "Those people can wait for their money, and you can just bet that I'm through doing business with them! They're not the only jobbers in the world. Dirty, low-down trick, I call it!" I was much surprised when Larsen replied: "You paid all other fellers, yes? You not pay him. You get mad with your debtors when they don't pay you? Doesn't the same sauce suit all birds?" (Larsen got his maxim a bit twisted, but I knew what he meant, all right.) "If I might suggest, I would go down to bank and talk with them. You won't be worse off, perhaps better." The more I saw of Larsen the more respect I had for his judgment, and I believed I had done quite right when at the beginning of the month I had frankly talked over my position with him. We had planned to talk over a scheme of profit-sharing with the help, but there had been so many things happening that we had had to defer it for a time. Well, I went and had a talk with Blickens, the president of the bank. He shook hands very cordially with me, but, when I told him what my errand was, the jovial manner seemed to fall away from him, and he became reserved and grave. Mighty suspicious, I thought. "It's no disgrace to want to borrow money, Mr. Black," said he, "if you have your business in such shape that it will justify a loan." I thought I read the suspicion in his voice that I was running the business to the wall. However, I told him fully just how things stood, showed my sales slips, amount of stock on hand, amounts owing, and all that, which I had brought with me at Larsen's suggestion. He looked over the figures very carefully. Then he said: "How much do you want?" "Fifteen hundred dollars," I replied, rather timidly.