“Very nearly so,” Mr. Grey replied; “but Nancy shall be the one. She took twenty dollars from White’s Bank, and put them into mine, where she already had a small sum. I have them intact yet, with her private mark upon them, and I want you to pay her back the same dollars. She has added small sums from time to time—put in five dollars yesterday—and now has in all some seventy-five dollars. I have quite a regard for Nancy. She’ll lead the mob, if there is one, and show fight, too!” Nothing the lawyer said could dissuade Mr. Grey from his purpose, and he gave it up, and Nancy’s name went in as the sole preferred creditor. For an hour or more the interview lasted, and at its close the preliminary steps for the closing of the bank had been decided; the assignment was drawn ready for execution the next morning, and Mr. Grey went home in quite a cheerful state of mind. Now that he had made a beginning, and the burden was in a way shifted from his shoulders to another’s, he felt better. It was not often that Mrs. Grey attended service in the evening, and as it was so warm, Louie decided to remain at home. Mr. Grey, however, went, and shook hands with a good many people, and appeared so affable and friendly and talked and laughed so much that it was commented upon by his friends and remembered afterwards as a sign that he was a little off in his brain. When service was over, he walked part way home with a neighbor, then saying good-night, he went to his bank, and, locking the door and lighting the gas, took a sheet of foolscap, and with a blue crayon wrote upon it in letters which could be read across the street: “THIS BANK CLOSED FOR THE PRESENT.” He made two or three copies before he was suited. “I want it so plain that he who runs may read,” he said, holding the paper off to get the effect. “This will do. This will catch their eyes the first thing in the morning,” he said, and pinning the paper on the wall sat staring at it until the letters were like blue tongues before his eyes. Many times he repeated the words, “THIS BANK IS CLOSED FOR THE PRESENT,” until they burned like fire in his brain, and he laughed aloud as he thought of the consternation they would produce and the rapidity with which the news would spread, and the crowd it would bring to the spot. He could not put the paper outside that night, for the moonlight would betray him. It must be done in the early morning, before anyone was up. “And I shall be here at the opening of the play,” he said, as with a last glance at the blue letters he put out the gas, locked the door and started for home, wondering why his legs trembled so and why he felt so weak. Once he sat down on a bench by the side of the road near his home with a feeling that his strength was gone.