Avison's Bank had been built about twenty years. It had been erected on the site of a much older building which dated from the period of William and Mary, and, after serving for several generations as the family mansion of the Colvilles, had been converted into a bank. The present structure was a plain but substantial building of red brick with freestone facings. It was entered from the street through large folding inner doors which swung easily to-and-fro on their well-oiled hinges. On the right a glazed swing-door led into the public office, where sundry clerks behind a long counter were prepared to honor your cheques, or to receive at your hands whatsoever sums you might be desirous of entrusting to the safe keeping of the Bank. This outer office was divided from an inner one by a half-glass partition. In the inner office John Brancker and Ephraim Judd were generally to be seen busily engaged on the Bank ledgers; John, as the senior official next to Mr. Hazeldine, being there to be referred to in case of any dispute or doubtful point cropping up in the outer office. This inner office had a second door which opened into the main corridor, and a third door into a fireproof room where books and securities could be safely lodged. On the left, as you entered from the street, were also two doors, both of which bore the word "Private." The first of them opened into Mr. Hazeldine's office, the second into that of Mr. Avison. In the former was the entrance to the strong room in which were the bullion safes, together with other things of scarcely less importance. In this room there was no window, and during business hours the gas was kept constantly alight in it, ventilation being supplied by means of a small grated opening in the outer wall. Finally, there was a door of communication between Mr. Hazeldine's office and that of Mr. Avison. As Sweet, the night-watchman, had informed Mr. Hazeldine, John Brancker and Ephraim Judd were at work this evening in the inner office. It was no unusual thing for them to work overtime at certain periods of the month. John Brancker had been in the service of the Bank for between sixteen and seventeen years. He was a homely-featured, plainly-dressed man of five-and-forty, with no pretentions to style or fashion. It was this very unpretentiousness, in conjunction with a certain simplicity of character and a cheerfulness of disposition that never varied, which combined to make him such a universal favorite; everybody in the town knew John Brancker and everybody liked him.