“And then?” queried John, who had received the impression that the motion to adjourn had come from the other side of the house.

“Wa’al,” replied Chet, not quite so confidently, “he said somethin’ about my requirin’ a larger spear of action, an’ that he thought I’d do better on a mile track—­some o’ his hoss talk.  That’s another thing,” said Timson, changing the subject.  “He’s all fer hosses.  He’d sooner make a ten-dollar note on a hoss trade than a hunderd right here ’n this office.  Many’s the time right in bus’nis hours, when I’ve wanted to ask him how he wanted somethin’ done, he’d be busy talkin’ hoss, an’ wouldn’t pay no attention to me more’n ’s if I wa’n’t there.”

“I am glad to feel,” said John, “that you can not possibly have any unpleasant feeling toward me, seeing that you resigned as you did.”

“Cert’nly not, cert’nly not,” declared Timson, a little uneasily.  “If it hadn’t ‘a’ ben you, it would ‘a’ had to ben somebody else, an’ now I seen you an’ had a talk with you—­Wa’al, I guess I better git back into the other room.  Dave’s liable to come in any minute.  But,” he said in parting, “I will give ye piece of advice:  You keep enough laid by to pay your gettin’ back to N’York.  You may want it in a hurry,” and with this parting shot the rejected one took his leave.

* * * * *

The bank parlor was lighted by a window and a glazed door in the rear wall, and another window on the south side.  Mr. Harum’s desk was by the rear, or west, window, which gave view of his house, standing some hundred feet back from the street.  The south, or side, window afforded a view of his front yard and that of an adjoining dwelling, beyond which rose the wall of a mercantile block.  Business was encroaching upon David’s domain.  Our friend stood looking out of the south window.  To the left a bit of Main Street was visible, and the naked branches of the elms and maples with which it was bordered were waving defiantly at their rivals over the way, incited thereto by a northwest wind.

We invariably form a mental picture of every unknown person of whom we think at all.  It may be so faint that we are unconscious of it at the time, or so vivid that it is always recalled until dissipated by seeing the person himself, or his likeness.  But that we do so make a picture is proved by the fact that upon being confronted by the real features of the person in question we always experience a certain amount of surprise, even when we have not been conscious of a different conception of him.

Be that as it may, however, there was no question in John Lenox’s mind as to the identity of the person who at last came briskly into the back office and interrupted his meditations.  Rather under the middle height, he was broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a clean-shaven, red face, with—­not a mole—­but a slight protuberance the size of half a large pea on the line from the nostril to