differ from the procedure of his own office, that he listened with
interest.

"Was it you," demanded young Andrews, in a puzzled tone, "or your
brother who tried to knife me?" Mr. Thorndike, unaccustomed to cross the
pavement to his office unless escorted by bank messengers and
plain-clothes men, felt the room growing rapidly smaller; the figure of
the truculent Greek loomed to heroic proportions. The hand of the banker
went vaguely to his chin, and from there fell to his pearl pin, which he
hastily covered.

"Get out!" said young Andrews, "and don't show your face here--"

The door slammed upon the flying Greek. Young Andrews swung his swivel
chair so that, over his shoulder, he could see Mr. Thorndike, "I don't
like his face," he explained.

A kindly eyed, sad woman with a basket on her knee smiled upon Andrews
with the familiarity of an old acquaintance.

"Is that woman going to get a divorce from my son," she asked, "now that
he's in trouble?"

"Now that he's in Sing Sing?" corrected Mr. Andrews. "I _hope_ so! She
deserves it. That son of yours, Mrs. Bernard," he declared emphatically,
"is no good!"

The brutality shocked Mr. Thorndike. For the woman he felt a thrill of
sympathy, but at once saw that it was superfluous. From the secure and
lofty heights of motherhood, Mrs. Bernard smiled down upon the assistant