“Oh, I’ve got it with me. I didn’t want to waste any time,” and Pickering took from his pocket warehouse receipts for the lard, and made them over to Bagsbury and Company. Then he filled out the blank-note form which John handed him. John took the warehouse receipts and looked at them curiously. “That’s an awful lot of lard. Here’s twelve million pounds right here.” “I’ve got more than that,” said Pickering, as he signed the note, “and I’ve been shipping it out of the city for two months.” “I don’t see how the devil you’ve managed to do it so quietly. Of course everybody’s wondered more or less about it, but nobody’s really known a thing. You’ve covered your tracks mighty well.” “That suggests something I want to speak about,” Pickering spoke slowly. He seemed to be feeling for his words. “This will all come out before so very long, I suppose; everybody’ll catch on to what’s happening, and act accordingly; but I don’t want that to happen any sooner than I can help. Of course, I can trust to your discretion, and I wouldn’t speak of this if it weren’t that there are one or two of your directors--one in particular--that I’d much rather didn’t know anything about this loan.” “I’ll not speak of it to anybody,” John said briefly. “Do you know our cashier, Mr. Jackson? Come out here and I’ll introduce you to him; he’ll attend to your deposit. I’ll leave you in his hands and ask you to excuse me. I’ve an engagement.” John’s engagement was not an important one--simply to lunch with himself. What he ate was never a matter of interest to him, and this noon they might have brought him anything, for his mind was absorbed in lard. The hog is an uninteresting beast. His way of life is monotonous and restricted; he has but one ambition, which in nearly all cases is satisfied. There is no individuality about him; no interesting variation from the normal to attract our studious attention. But when, by a swift and highly ingenious metamorphosis, he ceases to be Hog, and becomes Provisions, he assumes a national importance; his fluctuations become fascinating, romantic. Over him is fought many a fierce battle; he builds fortunes for some men, and others are brought to irretrievable ruin from yielding to his alluring seductions. It was evident to John that Pickering was trying to run a corner in lard; in other words, that he meant to buy all of that commodity that could be delivered to him, and a great deal more; then, being in command of the market, he would put up the price as high as he chose, and make enough profit from the non-existent, and hence undeliverable, surplus to more than defray the expense of disposing of the lard he actually possessed, or as the vernacular inelegantly puts it, burying the corpse.