Toward noon the crowd grew larger and its temper worse, as the more distant part of it began to fear it would not reach the window by closing time. That sort of gathering, where all have come with the same single purpose, acquires a distinct individuality. This giant is far lower in intelligence than the average of its component parts; more subject to swift, unreasoning enthusiasm or anger, easily led or directed by anything that glitters. It is a person, not a number of persons. You must reckon with it in the singular. In his office John was perfectly conscious of this new sullenness that had come over the crowd, and he soon discovered the cause of it in a newspaper the small boys were hawking about the street. It was a sensational “Extra,” with the words “Bulls break for Cover” in letters three inches high across the front page, followed by the information that Pickering’s gang was badly squeezed by a drop of four dollars a tierce in the price of lard, and that the cause was the serious run that was in progress at Bagsbury’s bank. At quarter after twelve there came to John’s ears a sound he had never heard before--the noise that this dangerous animal, called a crowd, makes when it is angry. It began with a mutter so far down the scale that it seemed to come from anywhere, or nowhere, swelled slowly at first, and then with a sudden stringendo to a yell, and snapped off so short he could feel the air quivering in the silence behind it. It fairly jerked the Banker out of his chair, and drew the half-dozen policemen who were standing about the big room, and who knew what it meant, to the door on the run. John reached the window just in time to see Pickering walking slowly up the steps. When he entered the private office he was slightly pale, but laughing, and he moved with an air of bravado toward the window. “Stand back from there,” said John. “You shouldn’t have come here to-day, Mr. Pickering.” “I didn’t come on a pleasure trip. I need some money.” The excitement that wild yell had wrought in him was oozing out now. His face twitched and he glanced uneasily toward the window. “Damn them,” he said. Then he repeated, “I want some money.” “You can’t have it,” said the Banker. They heard the storm rising again, and both men waited for it to break. It wiped the color out of Pickering’s face, and he was no coward, either. “Isn’t it a little late to let go?” he asked. “If it’s one of us now, it’s both.” “That may be,” said the Banker; “but you can’t have it. I can’t give you my depositors’ money when they’re lined up here to get it. It may be that when I find out where I stand with the clearing house, I’ll be able to help you. But I can do nothing now. And it seems to me that your staying here any longer,” there it came again, “isn’t going to improve the temper of that crowd,” he went on evenly. “Do you want a couple of policemen to go with you? Those fellows may be rough.”