“I don’t dare change it,” John continued. “I don’t suppose the majority of my father’s old customers would know whether my loans were secured with government bonds or shares in Suburban Improvement Companies; but if I should pack all this old lumber off to the second-hand shop, they’d think I was just taking the whole bank straight to the devil. It belonged here in father’s day, but it’s nothing now but a great big bluff. I hate to be forced to keep up false appearances. Perhaps if I hadn’t changed the policy, I would have dared to experiment on the furniture.” He unlocked the desk and lifted the heavy cover. The warehouse receipts which Pickering had given him lay there in full view. As he picked them up deliberately and laid them in a drawer, it occurred to him that Melville Sponley was the one man connected with the bank who should be kept in ignorance of the loan to Pickering, let alone the nature of the collateral that secured it. He could not be sure whether Sponley had seen the receipts or not. “How’s Harriet these days?” “Pretty well,” was the answer. “That is, most of the time she seems perfectly well. She certainly looks all right, only once in a while she’ll get all worked up over some little thing. It never happens when anything’s going on that interests her; but when she’s home by herself all day, and there hasn’t been anything to keep her occupied, she’ll be as nervous as a cat. I think that’s all the trouble: she likes things that are exciting, and when there isn’t anything, she gets bored. Now last night we had some people over to dinner--first time we’ve had anybody but you and Alice for a long while, and she was just as she used to be twenty years ago, not a day older.” There was a pause while John nodded reflectively, then Sponley asked,-- “How’s everything going here at the bank?” “Just the same,” John answered, “and that means thundering good. Deposits keep coming right up. They’re nearly twice what they were when we took hold. Next quarter we’ll pay the first dividend in the history of the bank that anywhere near represents the working value of the capital invested.” He paused and shook his head impatiently. “I don’t suppose it will do us any good, though. If those old fossils get a big dividend, they’ll think it means reckless banking. Lord! but I’m sick of their mummified ideas. If I can ever get hold of my stock--” “I think you will before the year’s out,” Sponley interrupted. “I think your trustees will turn the whole business over to you, not formally, perhaps, but at least will give you a free hand, to do about what you please.” “What makes you think so?”