As they left the little man behind and walked toward the sidewalk Marc poured out his troubles to Toffee. He told her of George's untimely reappearance and the unpleasant business at the bank. Mostly, though, he entered a stirring plea for her cooperation and good behavior. They had nearly reached the street when he suddenly stopped and raised a finger to his lips. A crunching noise sounded briefly on the gravel behind them, then stopped guiltily. "What's that?" Toffee asked. "Maybe nothing," Marc said. But he feared the worst. Marc left Toffee just inside the bank entrance with firm instructions to remain where she was, to do nothing and say nothing until he returned. Also, he advised that she keep Julie's coat drawn tightly around her as certain misunderstandings were sure to arise if she did not. Toffee nodded and cooperated to the extent that she gave the appearance of a mute paralytic freezing in a snowstorm. The effect did not become her. Upstairs, on the mezzanine, Marc made his way fearfully toward the president's office, a glass-fronted arrangement that overlooked the main floor of the bank like a guard tower in a concentration camp. As Marc approached, the president, looking up, caught sight of him and raced him to the door. The scene reminded Marc of a saber-toothed shark he had once observed in an aquarium, pursuing a small unidentified fish with murderous intent. Pausing for a moment, he glanced wistfully down at Toffee standing by the door. Then he turned quickly and ran to the rail. Even from that distance the mark of horror was plain on Toffee's face. Marc followed her stricken gaze and came very close to screaming. Downstairs, in the clerk's enclosure, a riot seemed to have broken loose behind the counters. At first glance it seemed the clerks were merely rough-housing among themselves, but a second look told an entirely different story. It was a scene that flagrantly thumbed its nose in the face of credulity, spat on the carpet of comprehension and sashayed out the door of sanity with an airy flip of the hip. [Illustration: The bank was thrown into a state of confusion as the money bags floated toward the door....] A pair of large money sacks, bearing the bank's name on their coarse sides, had plainly taken wing in a fit of convulsive madness. And whatever else these frightful sacks may have had on their minds, it was certain they possessed a boundless hatred for bank clerks. Progressing from the door leading into the vaults, they were savagely bludgeoning their way through the windowed enclosure, leaving a litter of prostrate figures and wilted white collars in their wake. The fugitive bags were making it emphatically clear that they would brook no nonsense from any faction desiring to frustrate them in their desire to be away from there. The current clientele of the bank was hastily arranging itself against the opposite wall.