“Well, Johnson, what’s this?” he demanded.

“You got money to sell?  I want to buy some.  Let me come in and talk it up to you.”

“Let him in, Hudson,” said Marsh.  His cigar took on a truculent angle as he listened to Johnson’s proposition.

It appeared that Johnson’s late outburst of petulance had cleared his bosom of much perilous stuff.  His crisp tones carried a suggestion of lingering asperity, but otherwise he bore himself with becoming modesty and diffidence in the presence of the great man.  He stated his needs briskly and briefly, as before.

“Money is tight,” said Marsh curtly.

He scowled; he thrust his hands into his pockets as if to guard them; he rocked back upon his heels; his eyes were leveled at a point in space beyond Pete’s shoulder; he clamped his cigar between compressed lips and puffed a cloud of smoke from a corner of a mouth otherwise grimly tight.

Mr. Peter Johnson thought again of that unlit cigar, came swiftly to tiptoe, and puffed a light from the glowing tip of Marsh’s cigar before that astonished person could withdraw his gaze from the contemplation of remote infinities.  The banker recoiled, flushed and frowning; the teller bent hastily over his ledger.

Johnson, puffing luxuriously, renewed his argument with a guileless face.  Marsh shook his head and made a bear-trap mouth.

“Why don’t you go to Prescott, Johnson?  There’s where your stuff is.  They know you better than we do.”

“Why, Mr. Marsh, I don’t want to go to Prescott.  Takes too long.  I need this money right away.”

“Really—­but that is hardly our affair, is it?” A frosty smile accompanied the query.

“Aw, what’s wrong?  Isn’t that security all right?” urged Pete.

“No doubt the security is exactly as you say,” said the banker, “but your property is in another county, a long distance from here.  We would have to make inquiries and send the mortgage to be filed in Prescott—­very inconvenient.  Besides, as I told you before, money is tight.  We regret that we cannot see our way to accommodate you.  This is final!”

“Shucks!” said Pete, crestfallen and disappointed; he lingered uncertainly, twisting his hat brim between his hands.

“That is final,” repeated the banker.  “Was there anything else?”

“A check to cash,” said Pete humbly.

He went back into the lobby, much chastened; the spring lock of the door snapped behind him.

“Wait on this gentleman, if you please, Mr. Hudson,” said Marsh, and busied himself at a cabinet.

Hudson rose from his desk and moved across to the cashier’s window.  His lip curved disdainfully.  Mr. Johnson’s feet were brisk and cheerful on the tiles.  When his face appeared at the window, his hat and the long black cigar were pushed up to angles parallel, jaunty and perilous.  He held in his hand a sheaf of papers belted with a rubber band; he slid over the topmost of these papers, face down.