Southern States -- History -- 1865-1877 -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
Just before Keith reached the counter, on glancing through an open door,
he saw Norman sitting at his desk, white and grim. His burning eyes
seemed deeper than ever. He glanced up, and Keith thought he caught his
gaze on him, but he was not sure, for he looked away so quickly. The
next moment he walked around inside the counter and spoke to a clerk,
who opened a ledger and gave him a memorandum. Then he came forward and
spoke to a teller at the receiving-window.
"Do you know that man with the two policemen? That is Mr. Gordon Keith.
Here is his balance; pay it to him as soon as he reaches the window."
The teller, bending forward, gazed earnestly out of the small grated
window over the heads of those nearest him. Keith met his gaze, and the
teller nodded. Norman turned away without looking, and seated himself on
a chair in the rear of the bank.
When Keith reached the window, the white-faced teller said immediately:
"Your balance, Mr. Keith, is so much; you have a check?" He extended his
hand to take it.
"No," said Keith; "I have not come to draw out any money. I have come to
make a deposit."
The teller was so much astonished that he simply ejaculated:
"Sir--?"
"I wish to make a deposit," said Keith, raising his voice a little, and
speaking with great distinctness.
His voice had the quality of carrying, and a silence settled on the
crowd,--one of those silences that sometimes fall, even on a mob, when
the wholly unexpected happens,--so that every word that was spoken was
heard distinctly.
"Ah--we are not taking deposits to-day," said the astonished teller,
doubtfully.
Keith smiled.
"Well, I suppose there is no objection to doing so? I have an account in
this bank, and I wish to add to it. I am not afraid of it."
The teller gazed at him in blank amazement; he evidently thought that
Keith was a little mad. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but said
nothing from sheer astonishment.
"I have confidence enough in this bank," pursued Keith, "to put my money
here, and here I propose to put it, and I am not the only one; there
will be others here in a little while."
"I shall--really, I shall have to ask Mr. Wentworth," faltered the
clerk.
"Mr. Wentworth has nothing to do with it," said Keith, positively, and
to close the discussion, he lifted his satchel through the window, and,
turning it upside down, emptied before the astonished teller a pile of
bills which made him gasp. "Enter that to my credit," said Keith.
"How much is it?"
The sum that Keith mentioned made him gasp yet more. It was up in the
hundreds of thousands.
"There will be more here in a little while." He turned his head and
glanced toward the door. "Ah, here comes some one now," he said, as he
recognized one of the men whom he had recently left at the council
board, who was then pushing his way forward, under the guidance of
several policemen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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