Scattergood was interested in every man, woman, and child in Coldriver.  Their business was his business.  But just now he owned an especial concern for Ovid, because he, and he alone, had placed the boy in the bank after Ovid’s graduation from high school—­and had watched him, with some pleasure, as he progressed steadily and methodically to a position which Coldriver regarded as one of the finest it was possible for a young man to hold.  To be assistant cashier of the Coldriver Savings Bank was to have achieved both social and business success.

Scattergood liked Ovid, had confidence in the boy, and even speculated on the possibility of attaching Ovid to his own enterprises as he had attached young Johnnie Bones, the lawyer.  But latterly he had done a deal of thinking.  In the first place, there was no need for Mrs. Nixon to continue to take in sewing when Ovid earned nine hundred a year; in the second place, Ovid had been less engrossed in his work and more engrossed by himself and by interests “down the line.”

It was Scattergood’s opinion that Ovid was sound at bottom, but was suffering from some sort of temporary attack, which would have its run ... if no serious complication set in.  Scattergood was watching for symptoms of the complication.

Three weeks later Ovid took the “three-o’clock” down the line of a Saturday afternoon and failed to return Sunday night.  Indeed, he did not appear Monday night, nor was there explanatory word from him.  Mrs. Nixon could give Scattergood no explanation, and she herself, in the midst of a spell of neuralgia, was distracted.

Scattergood fumbled automatically for his shoe fastenings, but, recalling in time that he was seated in a lady’s parlor, restrained his impulse to free his feet from restraint in order that he might clear his thoughts by wriggling his toes.

“Likely,” he said, “it’s nothin’ serious.  Then, ag’in, you can’t tell....  You do two things, Mis’ Nixon:  go out to the farm and stay with my wife—­Mandy’ll be glad to have you ... and keep your mouth shet.”

“You’ll find him, Mr. Baines?...  You’ll fetch him back to me?”

“If I figger he’s wuth it,” said Scattergood.

He went from Mrs. Nixon’s to the bank, where the finance committee were gathering to discuss the situation and to discover if Ovid’s disappearance were in any manner connected with the movable assets of the institution.  There were Deacon Pettybone, Sam Kettleman, the grocer, Lafe Atwell, Marvin Towne—­Scattergood made up the full committee.

“How be you?” Scattergood said, as he sat in a chair which uttered its protest at the burden.

“What d’you think?” Towne said.  “Got any notions?  Noticed anythin’ suspicious?”

“Not ’less it’s that there dude suit of clothes,” said Atwell, with some acidity.

“You put him in here,” said Kettleman to Scattergood.

“Calculate I did....  Hain’t found no reason to regret it—­not yit.  Looks to me like the fust move’s to kind of go over the books and the cash, hain’t it?...  You fellers tackle the books and I’ll give the vault an overhaulin’.”