The banker and the bear

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...

On this Christmas Eve Dick Haselridge was picking her way swiftly through the holiday crowd, but her glance roved alertly over the scene, and everything she saw seemed to please...

In quite another quarter of the city from the crowded thoroughfare where we first saw Dick, is another street, very different, but quite as interesting. It is narrow and dark; i...

Dick was, indeed, somewhat bewildered and disappointed. Had the events of Christmas Eve and the few following days occurred during the first month of her stay with the Bagsburys...

Sponley drove home immediately after the result of the election became known; but Harriet had expected him earlier, and when she heard the carriage drive up, she hurried into th...

“Don’t you know him? That’s Pickering, William George Pickering, the soap man. You’ve heard of Pickering’s Diamond Soap, haven’t you? Well, he’s the man. It’s pretty poor soap,...

Next morning Bagsbury’s bank had a joke, that is, the younger and less serious employees thought they had a joke,--Curtin had come down early. Ridiculously early, too; not only...

“What’s that?” John asked absently, from behind his morning paper. “Oh, yes, if you please.” He took up the cup, but instead of handing it to her, he drank off the dismal bevera...

Harriet Sponley dressed for dinner that evening with more than usual care. She liked to dress well, partly for her own sake, and partly because her husband appreciated it. But t...

“Have you any idea what it is that’s keeping Mr. Bagsbury?” Alice asked of Jack. She had been expecting him every moment while they were at dinner, and the tone of her question...

In the library the two men watched the door until it clicked shut behind those who were going into the drawing-room to hear Jack Dorlin play. Then, after adjusting his easy-chai...

Often it is not the first step that costs, but the waiting for the second. Last night, at a crisis, John Bagsbury had found it easy to make what was really the most important de...

Sponley was well satisfied with the course events so far had taken. He had got rid of his bank stock quietly and at a good price, with the double advantage to himself of an incr...

As Jack Dorlin drew near Bagsbury’s house that same Sunday afternoon, he felt a growing misgiving as to the wisdom of going in. He had not seen Dick since Wednesday night, when...

However important a campaign may be, however long it may have been in the making, the hours which prove really to be decisive are likely to be few. The dramatic situation in the...

Sponley talked to Mr. Meredith somewhat longer than was strictly necessary; and when there was nothing more to say, he still delayed a little in hanging up the receiver. He coul...

It was, however, a most unpleasant smile that accompanied John’s words. It brought to Sponley’s mind the story Hauxton had recalled to him that afternoon, of John Bagsbury’s mom...

There was nothing really surprising about it, though John had not expected that the two dissenting trustees would reach that turning in the lane so soon. On Sunday morning, when...

The time-lock is not an old device, but it is already a necessity. Just as the invention of new and impenetrable armor for battle-ships has only produced new cannon or new proje...

Dick has never been able satisfactorily to explain why, as soon as she had finished her breakfast that morning, she went to the bank. Just before starting she told Alice that Jo...

The withered, leering, old Goddess of Luck must have grinned wide that morning. To smile knowingly over men’s hopes is her delight; but to smile behind the back of a man who is...