“Oh, yes—after a time. The trouble is, I’m afraid it’s stopped our sales rather flat—for the time being, that is. You see, there’s a lot of money we expected would be pouring in on us about now—and it doesn’t pour. I’m not really worried, but I’m a little afraid Dan might need it, because his inter-urban ventures appear to have been—well, rather hazardous. You told me once that his brother’s description of him was ‘dancing on the tight-rope’ and in a way that’s not so far wrong. Of course he’ll pull through.” George suddenly struck the stone railing beside him a light blow with his open hand, and jumped up. “Good gracious! What am I doing but talking business to a lady on a spring evening? I knew I was in my dotage!” And he went to the steps. “Wait,” Martha said hurriedly. “You don’t really think——” “That Dan Oliphant’s affairs are in any real danger? No; of course not;—I don’t know what made me run on like that. Men go through these little disturbances every day; it’s a part of the game they play, and they don’t think anything about it. You can be sure _he_ isn’t worrying. Did you ever know him to let such things stop him? He’s been through a thousand of ’em and walked over ’em. He’s absolutely all right.” “You’re sure?” she said, as he went down the steps. “He’s absolutely all right, and I’d take my oath to it,” George said; but he added: “That is, he is if the banks don’t call him.” “If the banks don’t what?” He laughed reassuringly. “If the banks don’t do something they have no reason to do and certainly won’t do. Good-night. I’m going to stop in next door and see my sister a little while before she goes to bed.” His figure grew dimmer as he went toward the gate, and Martha, staring after him, began to be haunted by that mysterious phrase of his, “if the banks don’t call him.” CHAPTER XXVII THE next day, at lunch, she asked her father what it meant, though she did not mention Dan; and she brought out a crackling chuckle from that old bit of hickory, now brittle and almost sapless, but still serviceable. “Means a bank wants its money back; that’s all,” he said. “There’s plenty of reasons why a bank wants money—same as anybody else.” “But suppose I’d borrowed of a bank and was a good customer, and the bank knew I had plenty of property to cover the loan, would the First National, for instance, ever worry me to pay it, if they knew I only needed a little time to get all I owed it?” “Not unless we thought you mightn’t be as able to pay us as well later on as when we ask for it,” the old man answered. “You’d be all right as long as the First stood by you. The First’ll protect a customer long as anybody; and the others all follow our lead. What in time’s the matter with you? You plannin’ to borrow money? Geemunently! I should think you’d be able to put up with what you get out o’ me!”