decency to resign, no matter how old or how senile he became in the
course of time.

Now, Mr. Force took himself very seriously. Having married an
exceedingly wealthy woman after a career in which liveliness had meant
more to him than livelihood, he assumed that if he treated the world
at large with extreme aloofness it would soon forget--and overlook--
the fact that he had never amounted to a row of pins in the estimation
of those who knew him as a harvester in Broadway. Shortly before his
marriage--at forty-three--he abandoned an extensive crop of wild oats
in the very heart of New York City--announcing that he intended to
retire from active business and go to work.

Going to work meant stepping into a bank as its third vice-president
the week after his return from a honeymoon spent with a bride who
held, in her own right, something over one-half of the entire capital
stock of the institution. Her wedding present to him was the third
vice-presidency and the everlasting enmity of every director and
official in the bank. He accepted both in the spirit in which they
were given. To the surprise of his enemies and the scorn of his
friends, he promptly settled down and made himself so valuable to the
bank that even his wife was vindicated. He managed in one way or
another to increase her holdings and soon was in a position to dictate
to those officially above him. He dictated so effectually in the case
of the first and second vice-president that they preferred to resign
rather than to continue the struggle to keep him in his place. Before
he had been in the bank a year, he was its first vice-president.

It was generally conceded that the president himself would have been
in jeopardy but for the fact that he was the father of Mrs. Force and