days, and the Peter of the present, presided over the funds
entrusted to their care.

Well enough in its day, you might have said, with a shrug, as you
looked over its forlorn interior. Well enough in its day! Why,
man, old John Astor, James Beekman, Rhinelander Stewart, Moses
Grinnell, and a lot of just such worthies--men whose word was as
good as their notes--and whose notes were often better than the
Government's, presided over its destinies. and helped to stuff the
old-fashioned vault with wads of gilt-edged securities--millions
in value if you did but know it--and making it what it is to-day.
If you don't believe the first part of my statement, you've only
to fumble among the heap of dusty ledgers piled on top of the
dusty shelves; and if you doubt the latter part, then try to buy
some of the stock and see what you have to pay for it. Although
the gas was turned off in the directors' room, I could still see
from where I sat the very mahogany table under which these same
ruffle-shirted, watch-fobbed, snuff-taking old fellows tucked
their legs when they decided on who should and who should not
share the bank's confidence.

And the side walls and surroundings were none the less shabby and
quite as dilapidated. Even the windows had long since given up the
fight to maintain a decent amount of light, and as for the grated
opening protected by iron shutters which would have had barely
room to swing themselves clear of the building next door, no
Patrick past or present had ever dared loosen their bolts for a
peep even an inch wide into the canyon below, so gruesome was the
collection of old shoes, tin cans, broken bottles and battered
hats which successive generations had hurried into the narrow un-