He had been wet with perspiration when he went out upon the balcony, and now there was scarcely a dry thread on him, and he hardly knew what he was about. His head ached. His heart was beating with great thuds, which he could hear above the noise outside, and a spasm of fear seized him when a face appeared at the window. Some one had climbed up the water-pipe and was looking at him threateningly. “Oh,” he gasped, “this is terrible. I shall have to go home. I b’lieve I am dying. Herbert! Herbert! Come here!” Herbert came quickly, and said to him: “Brace up and put on your coat. We are going through. They can run till doomsday, and we’ll hold out.” The judge did not know what he meant, but he felt cheered in some way, and put on his coat, and was standing up when the door swung open a second time and four women came in, headed by Nancy Sharp, who thrust her great bare red arm through the opening in the screen and said to the cashier, “I want my money—twenty good round silver dollars, honestly earned by washing.” She might have told for whom she had washed, as she did to Louie, if the woman behind her had not struck her in the back and bidden her “hold her yap and hurry up,” while the clerk replied, “You shall have it,” and he counted it out in bills. “No you don’t,” Nancy said, drawing back. “I put in round silver dollars, and I want ’em.” She had reasoned that a bank which was shaky might pass spurious bills, and she would have none of them. She wanted silver dollars, and she meant to have them. “Very well,” the clerk said, taking back the bills and counting out twenty silver dollars. “Was there a private mark on them, by which you can know if these are the same?” he asked, with a merry twinkle in his eyes. “No,” she answered, “but I’ll put one on ’em, so if they are not good I can bring them back. Give me a pencil.” He gave her one, and, wetting it with her lips, she made a little cross on each of her twenty dollars, and stood aside for the women crowding against her. Within ten or fifteen minutes her account in the Grey Bank was increased by twenty dollars, and rather reluctantly she went back to her washing, finding the fire out and her water cold. But she did not mind it. She was safe, and cared but little how the tide of battle ebbed and flowed, although she would like to have stayed and seen it out. It was moving briskly now and very satisfactorily on both sides, although for a few moments there had been a tremendous panic when a rumor went through the crowd that the cashier had deserted his post and the bank had stopped paying. This arose from the fact that Herbert had asked the cashier to step into the rear office, while they explained more fully to him what was being done, and how they were doing it.