The Banker and the Bear

CHAPTER I BEGINNINGS FOR more than forty years Bagsbury and Company was old John Bagsbury himself ; merely another expression of his stiff, cautious personality. Like him it had been old from infancy ; you could as easily imagine that he had once been something of a dandy, had worn a stiff collar and a well-brushed hat, as that its dusty black-walnut furniture had ever smelled of varnish. And, conversely, though he had a family, a religion to whose requirements he was punctiliously attentive, and a really fine library, the bank represented about all there was of old John Bagsbury. Beside a son, John, he had a daughter, born several years earlier, whom they christened Martha. She grew into a capricious, pretty girl, whom her father did not try to under- stand, particularly as he thought she never could be of the smallest importance to Bags- bury and Company. When, before she was twenty, in utter disregard of her father’s forcibly expressed objection, she married Victor Haselridge, she dropped forever out of the old man’s life. The boy, John, was too young to understand when this happened, and as his mother died soon after, he grew almost to forget that he had ever had a sister. He was very different : serious and, on the surface at least, placid. He had the old man’s lumpy head and his thin- lidded eyes, though his mouth was, like his mother’s, generous. His father had high hopes that he might, in course of years, grow to be worthy of Bagsbury and Company’s Savings Bank. That was the boy’s hope, too ; when he was fifteen he asked to be taken from school and put to work, and his father, with ill-con- cealed delight, consented. Through the next five years the old man’s hopes ran higher than ever, for John showed that he knew how to work, and slowly the tenure of office was long at Bagsbury’s he climbed the first few rounds of the ladder. But trouble was brewing all the while, though the father was too blind to see. It began the day when the lad first set foot in a bank other than his father’s. The brightness, the bustle, the alert air that characterized every one about it, brought home to him a sharp, disappointing surprise. Try as he might, he could not bring back the old feeling of pride in Bagsbury and Company, and he felt the difference the more keenly as he grew to understand where it lay. But he liked work, and with a boy’s healthy curiosity he pried and puzzled and sought to comprehend everything, though his father out of a notion of discipline, and his fellow-employees for a less unselfish reason, discouraged his in- quiries. In one way and another he made several acquaintances among the fellows of his own age who worked in the other banks, and from finding something to smile at in his queer, old-mannish way they came to like him. He had his mother’s adaptability, and he sur- prised them by turning out to be really good company. His deep-seated loyalty to his father and to his father’s bank made him fight down the feeling of bitterness and contempt which, nevertheless, grew stronger month by month. Everybody in that gray old vault of a bank continued to treat him as a child; there was no change anywhere, save that the mould of respectable conservatism lay thicker on old John Bagsbury, and his caution was growing into a mania. One morning John was nearing his twen- tieth birthday then he was sent on a small matter of business to the Atlantic National Bank. He had despatched it and was passing out when Dawson, the president, surprised him by calling to him from the door of the private office. As John obeyed the summons and entered the office, the president motioned to another man who was leaning against the desk. “This is young John Bagsbury,” he said, “ Mr. Sponley.” John had no time to be puzzled, for Sponley straightened up and shook hands with him. Whatever you might think of Melville Spon- ley, he compelled you to think something; he could not be ignored. He was at this time barely thirty, but already he bore about him the prophecy that, in some sphere or other, he was destined to wield an unusual influence. He was of about middle height, though his enor- mous girth made him look shorter, his skin was swarthy, his thick neck bulged out above his collar, and his eyelids were puffy. But his glance was as swift and purposeful as a fencer’s thrust, and a great dome of a forehead towered above his black brows. Keenly, deliberately, he looked straight into John Bagsbury, and in the look John felt him- self treated as a man. They exchanged only the commonplaces of greeting, and then, as there seemed to be nothing further to say, John took his leave. “ Why did you ask me to call him in here ? “ demanded the president. “ Curiosity,” said Sponley. “ I wanted to see if he was going to be like his father.” “ He’s better stuff,” said Dawson, emphati- cally ; “ a sight better stuff.” Next day, a little after noon, John met Spon- ley on the street. Sponley nodded cordially as they passed, then turned and spoke : “ Oh, Bagsbury, were you thinking of getting something to eat ? If you were, you’d better come along and have a little lunch with me.” John might have felt somewhat ill at ease had his new acquaintance given him any oppor- tunity ; but Sponley took on himself the whole responsibility for the conversation, and John forgot everything else listening to the talk, which was principally in praise of the banking business. “ I suppose you are wondering why I don’t go into it myself, but I’m not cut out for it. I was born to be a speculator. That has a strange sound to your ears, no doubt, but I mean to get rich at it. “ Now a banker has to be a sort of commer- cial father confessor to all his customers. That wouldn’t be in my line at all ; but I envy the man who has the genius and the opportunity for it that I fancy you have.” An habitually reserved man, when once the barrier is broken down, will reveal anything. Before John was aware of it, he had yielded to the charm of being completely understood, and was telling Sponley the story of his life at the bank. Sponley said nothing, but eyed the ash of his cigar until he” was sure that John had told it all. Then he spoke : “ Under an aggressive management your bank could be one of the three greatest in the city in Beginnings f two years. It’s immensely rich, and it has a tremendous credit. As you say, with things as they are, it’s hopeless ; but then, some day you’ll get control of it, I suppose.” There was a moment of silence while Sponley relighted his cigar. “ Have you thought of making a change ? I mean, of getting a better training by work- ing up through some other bank ? “ “ That’s out of the question,” said John. “ I can understand your feeling that way about it,” said the other. “ I’ve detained you a long time. I’d ask you to come and see us, but my wife and I are going abroad next week, and shan’t be back till spring; but we’ll surely see you then. Good-by and good luck.” John went back to the bank and listened with an indifference he had not known before to the remonstrance of his immediate superior, who spoke satirically about the length of his lunch hour, and carped at his way of cross- ing his t’s. Sponley and his wife lingered at the table that evening, discussing plans for their jour- ney. Harriet Sponley was younger than her husband, but she had not his nerves, and there were lines in her face which time had not yet written in his. “ I’m glad you’re to have the rest,” he said, looking intently at her ; “ you need it.” “ No more than you,” she smilingly pro- tested. “ You didn’t come home to lunch.” “ N-no.” A smile broke over his heavy face. “ I was engaged in agricultural pursuits. I planted a grain of mustard seed, which will grow into a great tree. Some time we may be glad to roost therein.” “ Riddles ! “ she exclaimed. “ Please give me the key to this one. I don’t feel like guessing.” “ If you will have it, I’ve been putting a cyclone cellar in a bank.” “Whose bank?” “ Bagsbury’s,” he answered, smiling more broadly. “ Bagsbury’s,” she repeated, in an injured tone, “ I really want to know. Please tell me.” “ Did you ever hear,” he asked, as they left the dining-room and entered the library, “of young John Bagsbury ? “ “ No, do you know him ? “ He dropped into an easy-chair. “ Met him yesterday.” “ It won’t do any good, “ she said ; “ some- body has probably come round already and warned him that you’re a dangerous man, or a plunger, or something like that” “ Yes, I warned him to-day myself.” She laughed and moved away toward the piano. As she passedbehind his chair, she patted his head approvingly. The next few months went dismally with John. At the bank, or away from it, there was little change in the stiff routine of his life ; his few glimpses of the outside world, and par- ticularly the memory of that hour with Sponley, made it harder to endure. His discontent steadily sank deeper and became a fact more inevitably to be reckoned with, and before the winter was over he made up his mind that he could not give up his life to the course his father had marked out for him ; but he dreaded the idea of a change, and in the absence of a definite opening for him elsewhere he let events take their own course. Often he found himself wondering whether the speculator had forgotten all about his suggestion. But Sponley never forgot anything, though he often waited longer than most men are will- ing to. He and Harriet had not been back in town a week before they asked John to dine with them; “Just ourselves,” the note said. An invitation to dinner was not the terrible thing to John that it would have been a year before, but as the hour drew near he looked forward to it with mingled pleasure and dread. He forgot it all the moment he was fairly inside the Sponley big library. He had never seen such a room ; it had a low ceiling, it was red and warm and comfortable, and there was a homely charm about the informal arrangement of the furniture. John did not see it all: he felt it, took it in with the first breath of the tobacco-savored air, while the speculator was introducing him to Mrs. Sponley, and then to some one else who stood just behind her, a fair- haired girl in a black gown. “ Miss Blair is one of the family,” said Spon- ley; “a sort of honorary little sister of Mrs. Sponley’s.” “ She’s really not much of a relation,” added Harriet, “ but she’s the only one of any sort that I possess, so I have to make the most of her.” The next hours were the happiest John had ever known. It was all so new to him, this easy, irresponsible way of taking the world, this making a luxury of conversation instead of the strict, uncomfortable necessity he had always thought it. It was pleasant fooling; not espe- cially clever, easy to make and to hear and to for- get, and so skilfully did the Sponleys do it that John never realized they were doing it at all. When the ladies rose to leave the table, Sponley detained John. “ I want to talk a little business with you, if you’ll let me. “ I had a talk with Dawson yesterday,” he continued when they were alone. “ Dawson, you know, practically owns one or two country banks, besides his large interest in the Atlantic National, and it takes a lot of men to run his business. Dawson told me that none of the youngsters at the Atlantic was worth much. He wants a man who’s capable of handling some of that country business. Now, I remem- ber you said last fall that you didn’t care to go into anything like that ; but I had an idea that you might think differently now, so I spoke of you to Dawson and he wants you. It looks to me like rather a good opening.” John did not speak for half a minute. Then he said :