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voice inside the grating said in a low tone, "That's that Teeftallow boy, Perry."

Mr. Northcutt's face instantly took on a different, a more ingratiating, and somehow a more disagreeable expression. He said, "Oh, is it?" and immediately afterward, "Abner, would you mind stepping inside the grating just a moment, please?"

At this elaborate preparation to make him a depositor, all hope of getting any money whatever forsook Abner. He began to defend himself as best he could.

"I don't mind comin' aroun'," he began unhappily, "but I want my money same as Tug Beavers, I want—"

"Oh, that's all right," smoothed the cashier suavely. "Chester, just pay Abner twelve dollars and a half as he goes by your window. We want to see you on quite a different business, Abner, quite a different, and, we hope, a profitable business for you, Abner." Mr. Northcutt fairly purred out these "Abners," to the youth's utter nonplussing; the stripling in the teller's window pushed through two five-dollar bills, one two-dollar bill, and half dollar. Abner wadded these up awkwardly and tremulously and decided on what pocket he could entrust with so much money, as he passed around to the door which admitted him behind the grating of the bank.

Inside the enclosure sat three men, a girl, and a boy working at an adding machine. The youth with the blond hair remained at his window, but Mr. Northcutt, with the indifference characteristic of a banker in a one-bank town, where lack of competition breeds lack of courtesy, turned away from his grating as Abner entered and left the labourers to cool their heels in the lobby.

Mr. Northcutt smiled at Abner, and this drew the skin over his lean jaws and gave his face a queer corpselike appearance.

"You got your money all right, Abner?" he asked affably.

Abner, with a certain suspicion that the cashier might attempt to get it from him, admitted that he had it.