One “if” is enough to bring most men anxiety and sleepless nights; two “if’s,” both of them slender ones, may well drive a brave man to despair. But there was no thought of failure in John’s mind; he meant to win. John was one of the best bankers in the city, which is another way of saying that he knew men as well as he knew markets. Not men in a general, philosophical sort of way--Men, with a big letter; he had no interest in “types.” But he knew Smith and Jones and Robinson right down to the ground. He knew the customers of Dawson’s bank and of other banks too--men who came to him to persuade him to lend them money; he knew their tricks and their tempers as well as their balances. And in all the years of waiting he had not been ignorant of the way things were going with Bagsbury and Company. He knew his father’s customers, his friends,--such as they were,--and he knew the three old trustees, Meredith, Cartwright, and Moffat. He knew that you couldn’t talk to Cartwright ten minutes without having Meredith quoted at you, or to Meredith without hearing some new instance of Cartwright’s phenomenally accurate judgment; that each thought the other only the merest hair’s breadth his inferior, and that they could be relied on to agree and continue to agree indefinitely. And Moffat?--John smiled when he thought of him. The one thing in the world which Moffat couldn’t tolerate was obstinacy; and as nearly everybody Moffat knew was disgustingly wrong-headed, old Mr. Moffat found it difficult to get on smoothly with people. Moffat could not explain why men should be so cock-sure and so perversely deaf to reason, but certainly he found them so. It was most unfortunate, because though by intention one of the most peaceable of men, he was constantly being driven by righteous indignation into quarrels. When John left Judge Hayes, he headed straight for Mr. Moffat’s office. The old gentleman welcomed him cordially, for he had always held Mr. Bagsbury in the highest esteem, and was prepared, if he should find in John his father’s common sense, to think well of him, too. John talked freely about the will, and confessed his disappointment that his father had not thought him capable of administering the fortune himself. He added, however, that his wish was the same as his father’s, that the estate should be kept safe, and that he had no doubt it would be in the hands of the three trustees his father had chosen. They chatted on for some time, John feeling his way cautiously about among the old man’s opinions, dropping a word now and then about Cartwright or Meredith, until finally he drew this remark from Mr. Moffat:-- “I have only the barest acquaintance with my fellow-trustees. Do you know them well?”