The vault was in the basement just below the loan cage.  It was some twenty feet long and ten wide.  There were three tiers of boxes with double combination doors.  In the extreme left-hand corner was the “loan box.”  Near it were two other boxes in which the securities of certain customers on deposit were kept.  John had individual access to the loan box and the two others—­one of which contained the collateral which secured loans that were practically permanent.  He thus had within his control negotiable bonds of over a million dollars in value.  The securities were in piles, strapped with rubber bands, and bore slips on which were written the names of the owners.  Every morning John carried up all these piles to the loan cage—­except the securities on deposit.  At the end of the day he carried all back himself and tossed them into the boxes.  When the interest coupons on the deposited bonds had to be cut he carried these, also, upstairs.  At night the vault was secured by two doors, one with a combination lock and the other with a time lock.  It was as safe as human ingenuity could make it.  By day it had only a steel-wire gate which could be opened with a key.  No attendant was stationed at the door.  If John wanted to get in, all he had to do was to ask the person who had the key to open it.  The reason John had the combination to these different boxes was in order to save the loan clerk the trouble of going downstairs to get the collateral himself.

Next day when John went out to lunch he put two bonds belonging to a customer in his pocket.  He did not intend to steal them or even to borrow them.  It was done almost automatically.  His will seemed subjugated to the idea that they were to all intents and purposes his bonds to do as he liked with.  He wanted the feeling of bonds-in-his-pocket.  As he walked along the street to the restaurant, it seemed quite natural that they should be there.  They were nearly as safe with him as lying around loose in the cage or chucked into a box in the vault.  Prescott joined him, full of his new idea that cotton was going to jump overnight.

“If you only had a couple of bonds,” he sighed.

Then somehow John’s legs and arms grew weak.  He seemed to disintegrate internally.  He tried to pull himself together, but he had lost control of his muscles.  He became a dual personality.  His own John heard Prescott’s John say quite naturally: 

“I can let you have two bonds, but mind we get them back to-morrow, or anyhow the day after.”

John’s John felt the other John slip the two American Navigation 4s under the table and Prescott’s fingers close upon them.  Then came a period of hypnotic paralysis.  The flywheel of his will-power hung on a dead centre.  Almost instantly he became himself again.

“Give ’em back,” he whispered hoarsely.  “I didn’t mean you should keep them,” and he reached anxiously across the table.  But Prescott was on his feet, half-way toward the door.