A run on a bank is like a slit in a man’s vein; it does no particular harm if it can be stopped in time, but the stopping of it is imperative, and it will not stop itself. No bank could pay its depositors the money they have put in if they should all come and ask for it at once. The bank which, at a day’s notice, could pay half of them would be esteemed cautious--far too cautious; that is why it is necessary to stop a run. The very human predilection for being of the sheep who get their money, instead of finding oneself with the goats who do not, is the reason why the run will not stop itself. And just as a man may bleed externally where it is easy to estimate the extent of the damage, or internally, where it is not, so a bank may suffer a run in two different ways. There is the kind of a run which interests the general public, and which is therefore described in the newspapers, with great detail and circumstance and spirited little pen-and-ink sketches, three to the column. It occurs when those who have small amounts of money, generally savings, in a bank, fear it is going to fail, and come to carry this treasure home, where they hide it in stockings or old teapots or feather beds, until reassured that the bank, or some other, is safe after all. That sort of run has all the picturesque accessories,--the file of frightened men and women, the police to keep order; and if it is occurring in a work of fiction, it is likely to be concluded by the entrance of some philanthropist who flings down upon the counter bags of gold, at the reassuring clink of which the depositors depart with cheers. The other kind of a run, to return to our old figure, is likely not to be discovered until the patient is dead. It has no external manifestations whatever. It occurs when the larger depositors write checks for the amount of their accounts and deposit them in other banks. The banker can know nothing about it until he learns of the staggering adverse balance he must meet at the clearing house. The drain may be swift and brief, or it may continue slowly for a month; in either case, it is far harder to break, far more likely to persist, until it lands the bank in the examiner’s hands: that is the sort of run whose progress you may watch from across the street. It was evident to John that his savings depositors had been thoroughly frightened--the wild lie he had overheard as he entered the bank was probably but one of a score that were in circulation among them--and that they would run him in grim earnest. And he rightly suspected that Melville Sponley had thoughtfully provided a rumor or two which might stampede his commercial depositors also. When Dawson came around at half-past ten, he found a file of waiting depositors that extended clear to the corner. He walked into John’s private office and sat down near the window. “This is hell, isn’t it?” he remarked cheerfully. John nodded, and Dawson looked out at the crowd in the street.