“Silence, you ragamuffins, you villains, you fools!” he roared, flourishing his cane in the air, and in his backward sweep almost hitting Fred Lansing, who had hurried up the stairs and stood at his side, with an arm on his shoulder to steady him, and something in his manner which commanded attention and respect. “My dear friends, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “Please keep quiet and let the judge speak and explain matters, which he can do to your entire satisfaction.” Cries of “Go on, go on; hear, hear!” now came from the boys, one of whom was knocked down by a sympathizer with the judge, who saw the act and called out, “Yes, that’s it; knock ’em all down; wring their necks; send for the police and have ’em arrested, every mother’s son of ’em.” “Hush! Hush!” Fred Lansing said in a whisper. “Go it mild, or you are lost.” It was not in the judge’s nature to “go it mild,” but he made an effort and began to explain that there was no earthly reason for this outrage, and he didn’t know how it happened or who started it. Whoever did was an infernal fool, and ought to be tarred and feathered. “Running on _me_! Me! who has inspectors reg’lar. Now, if ’twas t’other bank, that runs itself, with nobody to oversee what was going on, there might be some sense in getting up this hullabaloo! But to spring it on me—_me_! It’s an outrage. Lord Harry, don’t you know who I am!” “Oh, rot, rot. We know who you be, so come to business and tell us how many cents on a dollar you can pay,” came from the boys, who belonged to the worst class in town, and were glad for this opportunity to scoff at a big bug without fear. “Hush! Go a little easier,” Fred Lansing said, and the judge replied, “‘Tain’t so easy goin’ easy with such dirt.” Then, to the dirt, he continued: “Look here and listen. I can pay every red cent and a hundred times more—only give me time. I’m an honest man, I am. Nobody ever said I wasn’t, but no bank wants a thing sprung on it like this, and few can stand it if everybody calls for their deposit and wants every dollar taken out at once. Heavens and earth,” he continued, warming up to the subject and growing more and more excited as he warmed, “are you fools enough to suppose that all your deposits are lying just where I put ’em when you brought ’em in? Where, I’d like to know, would I get my pay for my trouble, if I didn’t loan ’em out, keeping enough on hand to satisfy all reasonable demands, though not enough to meet a general run sprung on me unawares. It’s something like this: Suppose you owed somebody, and somebody else owed you enough to pay the somebody you owed, and the somebody you owed should come up and insist on being paid, the day before the somebody who owed you was going to pay what he owed, what would you do?”