So she cashed her checks, and counted her money, finding that she had two hundred and forty-five dollars. She didn’t know how much Teddy had taken from the bank; possibly more than this, possibly not so much; but whatever the sum, this would go at least part of the way toward meeting it. If she could meet it altogether, then, she argued, the law couldn’t touch him. On arriving at the bank her first sensation was one of confusion. There seemed to be no one in particular to whom to state her errand. Men were busy in variously labeled cages, and more men beyond them sat at desks within pens. Two or three girls moved about with documents in their hands, and there was a distant click of typewriters. People passed in and out of the bank, occupied with their own affairs, and everyone, clerk and client alike, had apparently a definite end in view. It was like coming up against a blank wall of business, leaving no opening through which to slip in. The weakest point seemed to be at a counter beneath the illuminated sign, "Statements," where two ladies waited for custom, conversing in the interim. Jennie stood unnoticed while the speaker for the moment finished her narration, bringing it to its conclusion plaintively. "So when mother called in the doctor, it turned out to be a very bad case of ty-_phoid_. Statement?" The question at the end being directed toward Jennie, the latter asked if she could see Mr. Collingham. The reply was sharp; the tone quite different from that of the domestic anecdote of which she had just heard a portion. "Next floor. Take the elevator. Ask for Miss Ruddick." The voice resumed its plaintiveness. "So we had him moved into the corner bedroom, and sent for a trained nurse—" On getting out of the lift, Jennie found herself in a sort of lobby where applicants for interviews sat with the hangdog look which such postulants generally wear. A brisk little Jewess seated at a desk murmured the name of each newcomer into a telephone, after which there was nothing to do but take a chair and wait upon events. Now and then some one came out from his conference, whereupon a messenger girl, generally of Slavic or Hebraic type, would summon his successor. It was nearly an hour before Jennie was called to the office of Miss Ruddick, who, with her practiced method of dealing with the importunate, prepared to put her rapidly through her paces and land her again at the lift. This Miss Ruddick did, not so much with the minimum of courtesy as with the maximum of conscientiousness. Her aim was to save Jennie’s time as well as her own, in the altruistic spirit of Mr. Bickley’s principles. "How do you do? Are you the daughter of the Mr. Follett who used to be with us here? So sorry for your loss, though it may be a release for him, poor man. We never know, do we? Now what is it I can do for you?" Jennie said again that she hoped to see Mr. Collingham. "I think you’d better tell your errand to me." "I couldn’t. I can only tell it to him."