THE July sun beat fiercely on the tin slate roofs of the houses forming square of Stafford. It was noon, business was at a standstill. The clerks and typewriters in Walton’s bank yawning and fanning themselves heat. The only occupied individual in the building was the banker himself, who was crouched over his desk in his little office making calculations on a pad of paper with a pencil. Toby Lassiter was at the window of the receiving-teller when an old man came in at the folding-screen door and asked if he might see Mr. Walton personally. It was Stephen Whipple, and he carried a travelling-bag in his hand; he was covered with dust, and marked in the creases of his face by drifts of fine cinders.

“I’ll see, sir, if you’ll wait a minute,” Toby answered, with his best window-manners; then he went to his employer, and returned to pilot the caller back to the office.

“Stranded on a trip and wants a check cashed without identification,” was Toby’s mental comment as he led the way. “Well, he’s come to the wrong man, as he will mighty soon find out.”

Whipple gave a searching glance at the man who was rising from the desk with impatiently lifted brows. He put his bag down at his feet, but failed to extend his hand, as Walton evidently expected him to do.

“Take a seat, sir, take a seat,” and the banker motioned to a chair near the desk.

“Thanks.” The Westerner kicked his bag along toward the chair, and sat down rather clumsily. He took out an enormous handkerchief, also considerably begrimed, and mopped his perspiring face.

“You’ve got a hot town, sir,” Whipple said, introductively.

“Some say so, and some say not,” Walton replied, succinctly. “Well, sir,” he continued, “is there anything I can do for you? The reason I make so bold as to ask is because my clerk said you wanted to see me personally.”

“Yes, it is of a sort of personal nature; at least, I reckon, you might call it that,” and the merchant reached down and caught the handle of his bag for no obvious reason than that he wanted to move it to a point equidistant between his two splaying feet. Then he looked up, and there was a decided flush of embarrassment in his face, which extended down to the soiled collar on his pudgy neck. The banker, ever quick at the reading of countenances, came to the conclusion that some sort of unbusiness-like request in regard to needed funds was forthcoming, and he was already framing his refusal.

“Well, sir—well, sir?” he said.

“The truth of the matter is that it is of such a personal nature that it is purty hard to know how to get started at it,” Whipple finally got out. “Of course, I am a stranger to you, and I’ve come, too, without any letters of introduction or papers of identification, and—is there any danger of anybody listening?”

“None whatever—none on earth!” Walton sniffed, impatiently. “You can talk at the top of your voice if you want to; the walls are thick; besides, I don’t have secrets, and I don’t know as I am in the market for any.”

“No, of course not, Mr. Walton.” The flush in the visitor’s face was dying out and giving place to an expression of rather anxious rigidity. “Well, I am glad we won’t be overheard, at any rate, for I want to talk to you in behalf of your son.”

“Oh, that’s it, huh? I see! I see!” And Walton swept the form before him with eyes in which the lights of anger were slowly but positively kindling. “It is about him, is it? Well, wait till I send this letter to the mail. I’ll be back, sir. I’ll be back.”

“All right, Mr. Walton. There’s no hurry.”

With the letter in his hand the banker rose as if from the sheer heat of the growing anger within him and went out. Standing in the door of the main counting-room he caught Lassiter’s eye and signalled him to approach. Giving him the letter, Walton said: “Mail that, and then come back and keep a peeled eye on that fat chap at my desk. Do you remember what I said when that three thousand dollars came from nowhere in particular by express awhile back, along with the mealy-mouthed yarn from Fred about changing his ways, and all that gush?”

“Yes, sir, I think so,” answered the startled Toby. “You said you thought—”

“That it was a deep-laid plan amongst him and some other sharpers to hoodwink me; and I told you, Toby, that I’d be willing to bet money that it wouldn’t be many days before somebody would hike along this way to talk it over—some go-between, you understand. Well, he’s in there now, setting humped over his satchel like a spider watching a fly. He thinks I’m the fly. I want to know what he’s got to say. I want to see his hand, you know, and I come out here to take a whiff of air and steady myself so I wouldn’t blurt out what I thought too quick and drive him away. Keep your eye on him after he leaves me, Toby, and see which way he goes. He looks to me like some shyster lawyer who has taken up the matter and thinks he is smart enough to fool me. Somebody has invested three thousand in this scheme, and the deal is to be clinched this morning. Huh! I’ll sorter tote ‘im along, Toby, and see if I can get onto his game,” and, with a sly and yet nervous wink, Walton turned away.

“Yes, sir; all right now, sir,” he said, breezily, as he returned to his desk and lowered himself into his chair. “We’ve got this room all to ourselves, and are as snug as a bug in a rug, as the fellow said. Now, fire ahead.”

“Of course, it must be a sort o’ disagreeable subject for you to talk about,” Whipple began, awkwardly, “and I’ll admit to you, Mr. Walton, that I thought over it a powerful long time before I finally made up my mind to come.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Walton said, pulling his whiskers with his long hand—“of course, you naturally would.”

“Especially as Fred had no idea of what I had in view,” the Westerner said. “You see, I had to act wholly on my own responsibility.”

“Yes, I see—I see, sir.” It was only by an effort that Walton kept a sarcastic ring of irritation out of his voice, and he stroked into the roots of his beard a smile of contempt at such puerile attempts to deceive.

“And that’s what makes the whole thing so hard on me,” the merchant went on. “You see, I took it on myself to act for Fred in, I might say, actual opposition to his wishes and judgment.”

Whipple then proceeded to give a full and accurate account of his first introduction to Fred and all that had happened to him since, withholding only his own name and the name of the town he was from. And while he talked, pausing to wipe his wet brow at times, or to clear his shaky voice, the banker watched him as a cat might a mouse. He held a pencil in his long, steady fingers, and kept the point of it on a pad of paper, raising his shrewd glance and lowering it as suited his fancy. Had he been an artist, old Simon might have sketched what to his understanding was the most subtly designing face he had ever seen. Here was a man, he told himself, who resorted even to the emotional methods of a ranting revivalist to gain his nefarious aims. It was a wonderful conception, but it wofully missed its mark, for it was being applied to a man who had no emotions. It was being applied to a man, too, who was as eagerly on the lookout for new tricks as a biologist for a new species of insect. What a weakling the fellow was, for a man of that age, and what fun it would be to suddenly undeceive him—let him know the manner of man he was attempting, in such a shallow way, to bunco!

“Yes, I decided not to wait longer,” Whipple concluded, with a sigh. “I didn’t intend to act till the remaining three thousand was paid; but, as I say, I—”

“It is only two, according to my calculations.” Walton thought he had tripped him up, and smiled knowingly.

“Fred said he felt that another thousand, at least, was due as interest at the rate you usually get.”

“Oh, I see; he’s certainly liberal.” Walton smiled at his joke, and bent his head over his pad to hide it.

“As I say,” the merchant resumed, “I intended to wait till the debt was entirely paid, but things took a sudden turn that I didn’t expect. I offered to advance the money to Fred, but he wouldn’t take it.”