"One never knows when the Invisible Eye is on him. Your employer, or fellow employee, may be a Knight of the Ku Klux Klan and you never suspect it." "You have located me all right, what do you want?" "I want the inside information of how Babcock was robbed." Watson threw away the stub of his cigarette and lighted another, at which he took several strong pulls before he replied. "I am going to tell you the whole story. I shall keep back nothing. I was employed in the Zala bank only a short time. I bought out my predecessor. I purchased his three thousand dollars' worth of stock in order to secure the job. I did not have quite enough money, and he gave me time on four hundred dollars. Mr. Babcock and I got on splendidly together. In eight months I had paid off the indebtedness on my stock. "Mr. Babcock was the leader of one political faction in Zala. The faction of which he was leader was victorious in the city election. Babcock was elected city treasurer. As treasurer he became the custodian of fifty thousand dollars, which he deposited in his own bank. The opposing political faction started a second bank and made plans to put Babcock out of business. They circulated the report that his bank was in a failing condition. "When Mr. Babcock heard the report that was being circulated he attempted to counteract it. Every evening after banking hours he would get in his car and drive until nine or ten o'clock, talking with farmers, telling them that the report that his bank was in a failing condition was a malicious attack started on him by his political enemies. However, there was considerable alarm among many of the farmers who had money in his bank. "Friday afternoon he said to me, 'I fear that the farmers will make a run on the bank tomorrow. There are always a lot of country folk in town on Saturday. There are some of these farmers who are alarmed--fear spreads rapidly in a crowd. I must be prepared. You take my car and drive to Wilford Springs and borrow thirty thousand dollars from Jim Stover to tide us over.' "I took plenty of collateral and did as directed. Stover pumped me as to the condition of the bank and elicited from me the information that Babcock had fifty thousand dollars of the city funds in his own bank unsecured in any way.