“It was cut close,” Pickering answered. “I hope it may never be cut so damned close again. Are you going to wait, too?” John nodded. There was no need of their discussing what they were waiting for, and neither man spoke again until it happened, which was about half an hour later. Everybody had expected it, though not so soon; but none the less it seemed unreal, incredible, when from the gallery the secretary of the Board of Trade read the formal announcement,-- “All parties having accounts with Melville Sponley are instructed to close out the same immediately.” The formula is as familiar as the alphabet, but containing that name, it came strangely, unpleasantly to the older men on the floor. They acted upon it, however. In Sievert’s office again it was John who broke the silence. “That’s all,” he said, when the clerk told them. “We really didn’t have him till now, but I guess this settles it.” Pickering slipped down from the table and moved toward the door. “Yes, this settles it. I’ve had enough for to-day.” He paused and came back to where John was standing. “I haven’t thanked you yet, but I will sometime. You pulled me out of the hole.” “I don’t need to be thanked,” said John, brusquely. “I was going on my own hook this morning. It was my innings.” He accompanied Pickering to the street, parted from him with a nod, and walked slowly back to the bank. He felt tired now that it was all over, but he was glad that he had a day’s work before him. He did not yet fully realize that the man he had fought so furiously was Melville Sponley, his friend, and he was half conscious of a wish to put off that realization for a while longer. Time would readjust things on some sort of basis, though there was an enemy where there had seemed to be a friend before. Anyway, the fight was over and well over. It had been a good fight. With that reflection the Banker turned into his office and attacked the pile of letters that lay on his desk; but even this habitual work which he did so swiftly and so easily could not prevent the sudden recurrence every little while of an uneasy feeling that something in the scheme of things was fundamentally wrong. If he had been any one but John Bagsbury, he would have discovered that he had the blues. Our story is almost done, for with Pickering’s subsequent and highly successful manipulation of the lard market, we have no concern. What was once the great fact in John Bagsbury’s life, his friendship with Melville Sponley, is now nothing but a memory, and the test to show which of the two is the better man, the test that the Bear so long ago foresaw, is fully accomplished. Yet there is a little more to tell.