The first notable event at the bank Tuesday morning was the early arrival of Pickering. He walked without ceremony into John’s office, seated himself near an open window, and at once proceeded to light a fresh black stogy from the stump of the one he had been smoking. “I have to smoke these as soon as things begin to get interesting,” he explained. “I find cigars too tame. I hope the smell doesn’t bother you.” “Not a bit,” said John. “It would take more than that. I don’t bother easily.” “I don’t believe you do,” Pickering’s voice came from a cloud of pungent smoke. “You don’t look worried to-day; but unless I’ve missed my guess, you’ve had to take a lot in these last days that would have worried most men.” “Is that a guess?” John asked quickly. “Nothing else,” said Pickering. “I haven’t heard any talk. Only I know that the story in the Sunday paper of your having made me that loan must have thrown some of your directors into fits, and I thought they might have tried to pass ’em on to you.” John could not help smiling over his recollection of the spectacle Cartwright and Meredith had presented Sunday morning, but he said:-- “They’ve taken it very well, upon the whole. Whatever they may think of the wisdom of making the loan, they seem perfectly willing to let me run the thing through, now that I’m in it.” “That’s not to be wondered at,” said Pickering. “You have a way about you that would convince most men that you can mind your own business better than they can mind it for you. “I came around this morning,” he went on, without waiting for the Banker’s meagre word of thanks, “because I need some more money.” “How much?” “Three hundred thousand.” No man can spend his life working toward and in the high offices of a bank, as John had done, without losing a good deal of his original fighting instinct, or if he can, he is a dangerous banker; the lifelong responsibility for other people’s money makes caution a sort of second nature. But not even a banker, until he is totally unfit for the business, loses all his red corpuscles. John Bagsbury had been betrayed, had been challenged to fight, had been threatened with certain defeat if he would dare to fight; and being a man, and a profoundly angry man, he was eager for Sponley’s complete overthrow. He would have liked to say to Pickering, “Go ahead and smash him, and I’ll see you through.” But if Pickering had guessed the existence of this feeling, and had counted it a circumstance in his favor, he had a mistaken notion of his man. John Bagsbury might feel the impulse, but the Banker would make or deny the loan. “I want to know just what property you’ve got,” said John. Pickering took a slip of paper from his pocket. “I thought you would,” he said. “Here’s a schedule of it.”