When John said that the publication of the fact of the lard deal and of his loan to Pickering put him in an awkward position, he stated only the least of his perplexities. He did not doubt that he should be able to clear himself with the soap manufacturer, not only of wilful betrayal, but of negligence. What troubled him was to find any sort of explanation of how the secret could have got out. All the morning the question hung in his mind insistently demanding an answer. The only answer he could give was one which his reason rejected as absurd, but it was reiterated as obstinately as the question itself, the name of Melville Sponley. The story had been given to the paper by one who knew the facts. It was no ingenious surmise of one who followed the markets. It did not tell everything,--not the precise amount of the loan, nor the bank that made it,--yet there could be no doubt that the man who had told so much knew the rest, and that he had held it back for reasons of his own. John knew it was impossible that Sponley could have found out in the mere instant when Pickering’s warehouse receipts had been exposed to his view two days before; but he could not rid himself of the conviction that it was Sponley who had ferreted out and betrayed his secret. On the Board of Trade they had nicknamed Sponley the “Black Bear.” That had reference, of course, to the side of the market on which he operated oftenest and most successfully, but it had this morning for John an added significance. How clumsy he was to the eye, and yet how terribly quick! John had seen this fat, heavy-eyed monster go into the corn pit and simply, by main strength, sell the market down--down--down. They were afraid of him on the Board of Trade: that tells the story. John Bagsbury was generally believed to be imperturbable. This morning his thoughts were running in a circle; his secret was out; Melville Sponley could not have betrayed it; no one else could have done so. Round and round again, with no way out, and yet no one could have guessed it; he worked swiftly, precisely, patiently, just as always. But there were two other troubled heads in the bank whose thoughts were under no such iron control. Curiously enough, each in his own way owed his perplexities also to the Black Bear. If you can imagine a coward trying to escape from prison, you can understand Curtin’s state of mind. When on the preceding afternoon he had shown Sponley the collateral, he had felt keenly humiliated; he had despised himself, and tenfold more he hated Sponley. But that feeling was gone now. The Bear had been right in saying that it was just a question of money. His being trapped, bound fast to Sponley’s will, was also a question of money. And now Curtin had found a way of escape, or rather Sponley himself had unwittingly shown it to him, and the way out was but a question of money, too.