He was met with a gladness that was only too perceptible. Every gentleman emitted a sigh of relief, and half started, as if to take the delinquent by the hand. Fields had expected this. He was shrewd enough to act before the feeling had evaporated. He advanced to the table. The directors hastened like schoolboys to take their accustomed places. They bent upon the teller's face the most anxious looks. "Gentlemen," said he, "I believe that you fully understand that I return this large sum of money to you at my own option. You recognize the fact that most men would endure, for instance, an imprisonment of ten years rather than lose the control of a quarter of a million of dollars." The directors hastened to signify "Yes!" "But," continued Fields, taking several large envelopes from his inner pockets, "I shall be content with less. There is the sum I mentioned." The directors fell upon the packages and counted their contents. The table was strewed with money. Fields contemplated the scene with curiosity. Presently it was announced that the sum was complete. "Now, gentlemen," said Fields, "you have suffered loss. I have a hundred thousand dollars which I have forced you to present me with. That is a large sum, though to us who are so familiar with millions it seems small, almost insignificant; but, in reality, it has a great importance. You now see, my friends, what a part of your money-making mechanism may achieve. There is no bank, even of third-rate importance, in this city, whose receiving teller or paying teller may not do exactly as I have done. On any day, at any hour, they may load themselves with valuables and go away. You, and all directors, depend servilely upon the pure honesty of your clerks. You can erect no barrier, no guard, no defence, that will protect you from the results of decayed principle in them. They are deeply involved in dangerous elements. Ease, luxury, life-long immunity from toil, wait upon their resolution to do ill. This resolution may be the determination of an instant, or the result of long-continued sophistical reasoning. You cannot detect the approach to such a resolve in your servant, and he, perhaps, can hardly detect it in himself. But one day it is complete: he acts upon it. You are bereft of your property; he flees, and there is the nine days' stir, and all is over. Your greatest surety lies in your appreciation of your danger. I have proved to you what that danger consists of; you did not know before. Your best means of defence is to respect, to the fullest extent, the people upon whom you depend. They are worthy of it. An instant's reflection will show you that neither of you would be proof against a strong temptation. For the sake of recovering a sum of money you have compounded with felony. All of you are at this moment in breach of the law. You have submitted without a struggle to the dominant impulse. The principle of exact honor which you demand in me does not exist in yourselves.