At eleven o’clock Fields wrote a note and sent it to the directors’ room.  The boy who carried it knocked softly, and the president appeared, took the letter, and then closed the door again.

Then there was a moment of almost total silence; the clerks wrote, the leaves rattled, and it seemed as if it were an instant before an expected explosion.

Presently an explosion came.  The clerks heard with astonishment a tumult in the directors’ room—­exclamations, hurried questions, the hasty rolling of chairs on their casters, and then the sound of feet.

The door was hastily drawn open, and those who were near could see that nearly all the directors were clustered around it, straining their eyes to look at the paying teller.  Most of them were pale and they called, in one voice, “Come here!” “Come in here at once!” “Fields!” “Mr. Fields!” “Sir, you are wanted!” “Step this way instantly!” Fields put down his pen, opened the tall iron gate which separated him from the counters, and walked rather quickly toward the den of lions.  An opening was made for him in the group, and he passed through the door, and it was shut once more.

He walked across the room to the fireplace.  He took out his handkerchief, and, seizing a corner between a thumb and forefinger, slowly shook it open, and then turned around.

“This note, sir!  What does it mean?” cried the president, advancing upon him, waving the paper in his trembling hand.

“Have you read it?” demanded Fields, in a loud voice.

“Yes,” said the president.  He was astonished at Fields’s manner.  He cast a glance upon his fellow-directors.

“Then what is the use of asking me what I mean?  It is as plain as I can make it.”

“But it says—­but it says,” faltered the venerable gentleman, turning the paper to the light, “that you have only money enough to last until twelve o’clock.  Your statement yesterday showed a balance to your credit of three hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars.  That will last at least—­”

“But I have not got three hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars.  I have only got twenty-seven thousand dollars!”

“But we counted three hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“Yesterday—­yes.  But not this morning.”

“Great God!” cried Stuart, thrusting himself forward, “what!—­” He fixed his feeble eyes upon Fields, but could speak no further.  His arms fell down by his sides, and he began to tremble.  He did not have sufficient courage to ask the question.  Somebody else did.

“What has become of it?”

“That I shall not tell you!” returned Fields, looking defiantly at one director after another.

“But is it gone?” cried the chorus.  Many of the faces that confronted Fields had become waxen.  The little group was permeated with a tremor.

“Yes, it is gone; I have taken it.”