Jimmy, completing the dive he had made to escape the arm of malevolence, came to an upright position at the middle of the step leading to the grocery. He did not in the least understand why, in the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” he might not be permitted to stand on the sidewalk and contemplate the deliciousness on display in Peter Potter’s window if he chose. He did not understand why the august banker should not have been paying sufficient attention to where he was going not to collide with inoffensive human beings wholly within their rights. He did not even try to understand why Martin Moreland had launched a blow at him with a heavily bandaged hand, but it had caused hatred to flare in his heart. He resolved, that if he ever got a chance, he would show Martin Moreland that he was just as good as any old banker. He wondered about the heavily bandaged head. As he looked after the retreating figure, Jimmy became aware, as he always was aware of any slight chance to be in the limelight, that a number of people on the street and at the doors and windows of the different stores, were watching the proceeding with intense interest. Immediately, Jimmy straightened his figure, felt for his hat, set his coat, and thrusting one hand into the front of it, strutted down the street in such exact imitation of the stride of the banker that a roar went up the length of the block; the louder people laughed the more exaggeratedly Jimmy kept up his imitation. Martin Moreland was conscious of being the butt of that shout of laughter. He was certain that the creature he referred to as the “town monkey” was performing some absurd antic behind his back which was making him the one thing he loathed being above any other—a laughing stock. His inherent pride was too strong to allow him even to glance behind him. He would infringe on his dignity if he permitted himself to pay the slightest attention to what he mentally denominated “the rabble.” Exactly why the Senior Moreland should have felt in his heart that the “boys grown tall” among whom he had been born and had lived all his life, were “rabble” would be very difficult to explain. He was perspiring freely with pain, with nervousness, while his heart was almost suffocating him with anger as he mounted the steps and made his way between the huge bronze dogs guarding the portal of the Ashwater First National Bank, Martin Moreland, President. CHAPTER VI “THE GOLDEN EGG” By what she could see in the October moonlight of the open spaces, Marcia Peters, pounding over the highway, surrounded by her belongings, imagined that she was on the way to the second largest town of the county, Bluffport, a dozen or so miles from Ashwater. She recognized the village when she was driven into it. She saw that she was passing the business part of the town and the better residences, and at last, as in Ashwater, she found herself on the extreme outskirts.