The statement which he was enabled to make was very satisfactory; and would have been all that was required, could his friend have been able to advance the funds. The pressure was indeed of a most serious kind, affecting individuals and banks alike; and requiring on the part of each the utmost skill and exertion to stem it through. James found that his only resource now to meet the present emergency, was to lay his case immediately before the Bank; if he failed to procure aid from thence, he saw not whence it was to come. The power which by circumstances becomes thus concentrated, can only truly be felt by those situated as was this young man. Whether it be an individual, or a corporate body, and whether they are conscious of it or not, the ability, for the time being, which is at their command to afford or to withhold the life-blood of trade and commercial credit, is the most despotic in its grasp on the mind of man that can be conceived this side of infinite sway. It is not, of necessity, the fault of those who wield it, that it should often press with such sickening, despairing force; so long as enterprise shall stimulate man to go a step beyond the means at his own disposal, must he in some measure depend upon the aid of others; and once dependent, he can never calculate with certainty upon enduring peace of mind. The fluctuations in trade, like changes in the weather, baffle all the skill of the most shrewd and far-sighted: they come at times before any suitable preparation can be made to meet their destructive influence, and the high-minded, honorable man is obliged to stand before the same tribunal with the mean and designing, and for too often compelled to submit to rules which make no allowance for character. It was the first time that James had known really what it meant to ask a moneyed favor. He had begun life as we have seen, and gone on, hitherto, so much by his own means, that he felt more like a criminal about to be arraigned, than an honest man in the discharge of duty; and nothing but the absolute necessity of doing something to preserve the credit of his house, and upon which every thing now depended, would have driven him to it. He was not personally known to the cashier, and therefore his friend accompanied him to the Bank, introduced him, and left him to tell his own story. Fortunately for James, the person he had now to deal with was a gentleman in every sense of the word; a man of large experience, at home in all the routine of business, a complete financier, and with a large share of true benevolence. Every unpleasant feeling was, for the time, at once banished by the agreeable, frank, and very kind manner with which this officer received and addressed him. James felt almost sure that his end was accomplished. He very soon, in a brief manner, related the circumstances in which he had been placed by the sudden failure of so many persons, and then handed to the cashier the schedule of his property and liabilities.