"I see that they've had a shaking up over at St. Joe. Well, Wigglesworth never was any good. They ought to have had more sense than to get caught by him. Well, sir, you remember he was offering his paper up here. We could have had a barrel of it; but when a man of his credit peddles his paper away from home, it's a good thing to let alone. When they figure up Wigglesworth's liabilities they will find that he has paper scattered all over the Missouri Valley, and I'll bet the Second's stuck. The last time I saw Wigglesworth he was up at the club one day with Buskirk. He'd been in to see me the day before. I guessed then that he was looking for help which they didn't think he was worth at home." And then, with a chuckle: "Our people," meaning his directors, "think sometimes we're too conservative, and I reckon I do lose a lot of business for them that other fellows would take and get out of all right; but I guess we make more in the long run by being careful. Banking ain't exactly stove polish or vitalized barley, to put up in pretty packages and advertise on the billboards." Wheaton was honestly sympathetic and responsive along these lines. He admired Porter, although he often felt that the president made mistakes; yet he, too, believed in conservatism; it was a matter of temperament rather than principle. This mingling of social and business elements pleased and flattered Wheaton. He felt that his position in the Porter bank gave him a double footing in the Porter house. Porter usually ignored Evelyn's presence while he finished whatever he was saying. Then he would go back to his chair in the library, where he could hear the voices across the hall; but he never remained after he had concluded his own talk with Wheaton. Sometimes, however, when there were other men in the house, Porter would come and stand in the door and regard them good-humoredly, and nod to them amiably, usually with his cigar in his mouth and the evening newspaper in his hand. When there was a good deal of laughing he would go over and gaze upon them questioningly and quiz them; but they usually felt the restraint of his presence. If they repeated to him some story which had prompted their mirth, he was wont to rebuke them with affected seriousness, or he would tell them a story of his own. He expected Evelyn to receive a great deal of attention. He liked to know who her callers were and where she herself visited, and it pleased him that she had called on all her mother's old friends, whether they had been to see her or not. He had a sense of the dignities and proprieties of life, and he felt his own prestige as a founder of the town; it would have been a source of grief to him if Evelyn had not taken a leading place among its young people.