"You are engaged in many ventures. Some are strong." He named all the good ones as if he were quoting from a carefully drawn report. "Some are weak." He named the others. "Now, you are trying to hold the weak with the strong. It is like carrying a basket of eggs on your head. All goes well until some one runs against you. Then bum, biff!--you have the beginning of an omelet." His way of putting it made me laugh. "And the omelet is about ready to cook in an hour or two!" I added. "We shall see presently. You want to sell out this packing business, some day, eh? To Strauss? You take big chances. You are a new man. They suspect you. They call your loans. They think that you are thin in the waist? You have to borrow a great deal of money and pay high for it?" "You have sized me up, Mr. Carboner." "And after you have sold to Strauss there will be railroads--ah, that is more difficult! And then many other things--always ventures, risks, schemes, plans, great plans! For you are very bold." "Well, what will you do for me?" I asked bluntly. "I think we can carry you over this river, Mr. Harrington," he replied, looking at me with a very amiable air, as if he were my schoolmaster and had decided to give me a holiday and some spending money. Who made up the "we" in this firm of Rip Van Winkle bankers? Carboner seemed to divine my doubts; for he smiled as he reached for a pad of paper and began to write in a close, crabbed hand. "Take that to Mr. Bates," he directed. "You know him, eh?" Did I know Orlando Bates! If I had been to him once at the Tenth National, of which he was president, I had been to him fifty times, with varying results. I knew every wrinkle in his parchment-covered face. "He will give you what you want," the old man added. I still hesitated, holding Carboner's scrawl in my hand. "You think it no good?" He motioned to the sheet of coarse paper. "Try it!" "Don't you want a receipt?" I stammered. "What for? Do you think I am a pawnbroker?" The mystery grew. Suppose I should take this old fellow's scrawl over to Orlando Bates, and the president of the Tenth National should ask me what it meant? "It is good," Carboner said impressively. "Whose is it?" The words escaped me unconsciously. "I want to know whose money I am taking." "I hope it will be no one's," he answered imperturbably, "except the bank's. You come to me wanting money, credit. I give it to you. I ask no questions. Why should you?" Was it a woman's money I was taking to play out my game. I recalled the story Sarah had told me years ago about Jane Dround's father and his fortune. He was a rich old half-breed trader, and it was gossiped that he had left behind him a pile of gold. Perhaps this Mr. Carboner was some French-Canadian, friend or business partner of Jane's father, who had charge of her affairs. As Sarah had said, Jane Dround was always secret and uncommunicative about herself. My faith in the piece of paper was growing, but I still waited.