“Sixty.”

“But I would prefer that Mr. Barker should not offer in the open market at present.  Give him seventy for it—­private sale; that will be ten thousand dollars paid to his credit.  Advise the Branch of this at once, and to keep the transaction quiet.”

“Yes, sir,” responded the clerk as he moved towards the door.  But he hesitated, and with another essay at confidence said insinuatingly, “I always thought, sir, that Wide West would recover.”

Stacy, perhaps not displeased to find what had evidently passed in his subordinate’s mind, looked at him and said dryly, “Then I would advise you also to keep that opinion to yourself.”  But, clever as he was, he had not anticipated the result.  Mr. North, though a trusted employee, was human.  On arriving in the outer office he beckoned to one of the lounging brokers, and in a low voice said, “I’ll take two shares of Wide West, if you can get it cheap.”

The broker’s face became alert and eager.  “Yes, but I say, is anything up?”

“I’m not here to give the business of the bank away,” retorted North severely; “take the order or leave it.”

The man hurried away.  Having thus vindicated his humanity by also passing the snub he had received from Stacy to an inferior, he turned away to carry out his master’s instructions, yet secure in the belief that he had profited by his superior discernment of the real reason of that master’s singular conduct.  But when he returned to the private room, in hopes of further revelations, Mr. Stacy was closeted with another financial magnate, and had apparently divested his mind of the whole affair.

CHAPTER II.

When George Barker returned to the outer ward of the financial stronghold he had penetrated, with its curving sweep of counters, brass railings, and wirework screens defended by the spruce clerks behind them, he was again impressed with the position of the man he had just quitted, and for a moment hesitated, with an inclination to go back.  It was with no idea of making a further appeal to his old comrade, but—­what would have been odd in any other nature but his—­he was affected by a sense that he might have been unfair and selfish in his manner to the man panoplied by these defenses, and who was in a measure forced to be a part of them.  He would like to have returned and condoled with him.  The clerks, who were heartlessly familiar with the anxious bearing of the men who sought interviews with their chief, both before and after, smiled with the whispered conviction that the fresh and ingenuous young stranger had been “chucked” like others until they met his kindly, tolerant, and even superior eyes, and were puzzled.  Meanwhile Barker, who had that sublime, natural quality of abstraction over small impertinences which is more exasperating than studied indifference, after his brief hesitation passed out unconcernedly through the swinging mahogany