PART ONE: THE FLOOD

The president looked up from the underwriters’ plan of the latest “Industrial” consolidation capital stock, $100,000,000; assets, for publication, $100,000,000 which the syndicate’s lawyers had pronounced perfectly legal. Judiciously advertised, the stock probably would be oversubscribed. The profits ought to be enormous. He was one of the underwriters.

“What is it?” he asked. He did not frown, but his voice was as though hung with icicles. The assistant cashier, an imaginative man in the wrong place, shivered.

“This gentleman,” he said, giving a card to the president, “wishes to make a deposit of one hundred thousand dollars.”

The president looked at the card. He read on it:

MR. GEORGE KITCHELL GRINELL

“Who sent him to us?” he asked.

“I don’t know, sir. He said he had a letter of introduction to you,” answered the assistant cashier, disclaiming all responsibility in the matter.

The president read the card a second time. The name was unfamiliar.

“Grinnell?” he muttered. “Grinnell? Never heard of him.” Perhaps he felt it was poor policy to show ignorance on any matter whatever. When he spoke again, it was in a voice overflowing with a dignity that was a subtle rebuke to all assistant cashiers:

“I will see him.”

He busied himself once more with the typewritten documents before him, lost in its alluring possibilities, until he became conscious of a presence near him. He still waited, purposely, before looking up. He was a very busy man, and all the world must know it. At length he raised his head majestically, and turned—an animated fragment of a glacier—until his eyes rested on the stranger’s.

“Good-morning, sir,” he said politely.

“Good-morning, Mr. Dawson,” said the stranger. He was a young man, conceivably under thirty, of medium height, square of shoulders, clean-shaven, and clear-skinned. He had brown hair and brown eyes. His dress hinted at careful habits rather than at fashionable tailors. Gold-rimmed spectacles gave him a studious air, which disappeared whenever he spoke. As if at the sound of his own voice, his eyes took on a look of alert self-confidence which interested the bank president. Mr. Dawson was deeply prejudiced against the look of extreme astuteness, blended with the desire to create a favourable impression, so familiar to him as the president of the richest bank in Wall Street.

“You are Mr.——” The president looked at the stranger’s card as though he had left it unread until he had finished far more important business. It really was unnecessary; but it had become a habit, which he lost only when speaking to his equals or his superiors in wealth.

“Grinnell,” prompted the stranger, very calmly. He was so unimpressed by the president that the president was impressed by him.

“Ah, yes. Mr. Williams tells me you wish to become one of our depositors?”

“Yes, sir. I have here,” taking a slip of paper from his pocket-book, “an Assay Office check on the Sub-Treasury. It is for a trifle over a hundred thousand dollars.”

Even the greatest bank in Wall Street must have a kindly feeling toward depositors of a hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Dawson permitted himself to smile graciously.

“I am sure we shall be glad to have your account, Mr. Grinnell,” he said. “You are in business in——” The slight arching of his eyebrows, rather than the inflection of his voice, made his words a delicate interrogation. He was a small, slender man, greyhaired and grey-moustached, with an air of polite aloofness from trivialities. His manners were what you might expect of a man whose grandfather had been Minister to France, and had never forgotten it; nor had his children. His self-possession was so great that it was not noticeable.

“I am not in any business, Mr. Dawson, unless,” said the young man with a smile that deprived his voice of any semblance of pertness or of premeditated discourtesy, “it is the business of depositing $103,648.67 with the Metropolitan National Bank. My friend, Professor Willetts, of Columbia, gave me a letter of introduction. Here it is. I may say, Mr. Dawson, that I haven’t the slightest intention of disturbing this account, as far as I know now, for an indefinite period.” The president read the letter. It was from the professor of metallurgy at Columbia, who was an old acquaintance of Dawson’s. It merely said that George K. Grinnell was one of his old students, a graduate of the School of Mines, who had asked him to suggest a safe bank of deposit. This the Metropolitan certainly was. He had asked his young friend to attach his own signature at the bottom, since Grinnell had no other bank accounts, and no other way of having his signature verified. Mr. Grinnell had said he wished his money to be absolutely safe, and Professor Willetts took great pleasure in

sending him to Mr. Dawson.

Mr. Dawson bowed his head—an acquiescence meant to be encouraging. To the young man the necessity for such encouragement was not clear. Possibly it showed in his eyes, for Mr. Dawson said very politely, in an almost courtly way he had at times to show some people that an aristocrat could do business aristocratically:

“It is not usual for us to accept accounts from strangers. We do not really know.” very gently, “that you are the man to whom this letter was given, nor that your signature is that of Mr. George K. Grinnell.”

The young man laughed pleasantly. “I see your position, Mr. Dawson, but, really, I am not important enough to be impersonated by anybody. As for my being George K. Grinnell, I’ve laboured under that impression for twenty-nine years. I’ll have Professor Willetts in person introduce me, if you wish. I have some letters——” He made a motion toward his breast pocket, but Mr. Dawson held up a hand in polite dissent; he was above suspicions. “And as for my signature, if you will send a clerk with me to the Assay Office, next door they will doubtless verify it to your satisfaction; I can just as easily bring legal tender notes, I suppose. In any case, as I have no intention of touching this money for some time to come, I suppose the bank will be safe from——”

“Oh,” interrupted Dawson, with a sort of subdued cordiality, “as I told you before, while we do not usually take accounts from people of whom we know nothing in a business way, we will make an exception in your case.” That the young man might not think the bank’s eagerness for deposits made its officers unbusinesslike, the president added, with a politely explanatory smile: “Professor Willetts’s letter is sufficient introduction. As you say you are not in business—”

He paused and looked at the young man for confirmation.

“No, sir; I happen to have this money, and I desire a safe place to keep it in. I may bring a little more. It depends upon certain family matters. But that is for the future to decide. In the meantime, I should like to leave this money here, untouched.”

“Very well, sir.” The president pushed a button on his desk. A bright-looking, neatly dressed office-boy appeared, his face exaggeratedly attentive.

“Ask Mr. Williams to come in, please.” The office-boy turned on his heels as by a military command, and hastened away. It was the bank’s training; the president’s admirers said it showed his genius for organization down to the smallest detail. Presently the assistant cashier entered.

“Mr. Williams, Mr. Grinnell will be one of our most valued depositors. We must show him that we appreciate his confidence in us. Kindly attend to the necessary details.” Mr. Dawson paused. Perhaps his hesitancy was meant as an invitation to Mr. George Kitchell Grinnell to vouchsafe further information of a personal nature. But Mr. Grinnell said, with a smile: “Many thanks, Mr. Dawson,” and Mr. Dawson smiled back, politely. As the men turned to go, he took up the underwriting plan and forgot all about the incident. It was a Thursday. It might as well have been a Monday or a Tuesday; but it was not.

Mr. Williams called up Professor Willetts on the telephone, who said he had given a letter of introduction to George K. Grinnell. He described Grinnell’s appearance, and added that Grinnell had been one of his students, and was quite well up on metallurgy, but was not, so far as the professor knew, engaged in active business. He thought Grinnell had some private means. The Assay Office people had identified Grinnell and his signature. It was not much information, but it was enough.

On the following Thursday, after the close of the business day, Mr. Dawson, reading over some routine memoranda submitted by the cashier, found his gaze arrested by a line that told of the deposit of $151,008 by “George K. Grinnell.” He sent for the cashier.

“What about this $151,000 deposit by George K. Grinnell?” he asked.

“He deposited an Assay Office check, the same as he did last week.”

The president frowned. He was puzzled.

“If he should happen to make any further deposits of this character, tell the receiving teller to say I should like to see him, please.”

“Very well, sir.”

The president turned to his desk again, and promptly forgot the incident—forgot it for exactly one week. On the following Thursday, shortly before noon, Williams, the assistant cashier—a short, stout man, with an oleaginous smile—approached his feared chief.

“Excuse me, Mr. Dawson,”—the assistant cashier’s habitual attitude before the president was one uninterrupted apology for existing at all—“Mr. Grinnell is here.”

“Grinnell? Grinnell?” mused the president, frowning.

“He has just deposited $250,000—an Assay Office check, the same as last Thursday. You said if he should——”

“Yes, yes, I know,” said Mr. Dawson sharply. “Tell him to be kind enough to come in.” He muttered to himself: “That makes half a million in gold in a fortnight. H’m!” When Mr. Dawson h’mmed to himself it meant business—usually, woe to the vanquished!

He rose to greet the h’m-compelling depositor.

“How do you do, Mr. Grinnell?” He smiled with a cordiality that was more than mere affability and extended his hand. The president’s grasp was firm. Wall Street said that his soul had been in cold storage some thirty thousand centuries before it came down to earth to animate the body of Richard Dawson. But Mr. Dawson, just as there are men who endeavour to seem honest by habitually looking you straight in the eyes, believed that strong pressure must indicate genuine friendliness in a hand clasp.

Mr. Grinnell smiled. There was not the faintest trace of hostility in the young man’s smile; but it was not a fatuous smile, nevertheless.

“The cashier said you——”

“Yes; I told him to ask you to be good enough to see me. I hope I am not inconveniencing you?”

“Not at all. But I fancy you are very busy.”

The president smiled in self-defence.

“Mr. Grinnell,” he said, with a sort of quizzical joviality, “you have been a source of some—I’ll own up”—with the amused smile of men when they confess to an essentially feminine sin—“curiosity. I tell you frankly that I’d very much like to know more about you—what you are doing, what you have done, what you intend to do. In the past fifteen days you have deposited with us a half-million in gold.” He again smiled; this time interrogatively.

“Mr. Dawson,” the young man answered, very seriously, though not in the slightest degree rebukingly, “really I can add nothing to what I told you when I first had the pleasure of seeing you. As I said then, I have not the slightest intention of disturbing the account, not to the extent of one cent, so far as I can see now. Indeed, you may safely assume that this money will remain untouched for an indefinite period. I’d rather keep the money here than in a safe-deposit vault. Still,” with a smile for the first time, “if you think I’d better transfer my account to the Eastern National, or the Marshall National, to save you further——”

“Oh, my dear Mr. Grinnell!” in a tone that conveyed to a nicety his shock at being misunderstood, “I merely wished to learn more about you from a natural business curiosity. We certainly are satisfied if you are.”

“Well,” Grinnell said, smiling again, “I am twenty-nine years old, single, an orphan, a graduate of the School of Mines. I live with my sister at 193 West 38th Street, and I believe in a republican form of government under a Democratic administration.”

“My dear Mr. Grinnell,” said the president, with a look of regret to hide his annoyance, “pray do not imagine for an instant that I had any desire to pry into your personal affairs. You know, we like to take an interest in our depositors, just as we wish our depositors to take an interest in us. Your bank president should be your business father confessor. The time may come when we may be of use to you. I shall be glad to give you my best advice, should you ever care for it. And, Mr. Grinnell,” with a smile, paternal to the last eighth, “I am a month or two older than you. I have had some experience in many lines of business,” excepting that of Mr. George K. Grinnell, who did not accept the subtle invitation to confide. Then, with a final smile, putting his hand on the young man’s shoulder: “As for your account, Mr. Grinnell, may it continue to grow! We can stand it if you can.”

“I am glad to hear that; very glad indeed, I may take you at your word. Being young, I am, of course, very wise, Mr. Dawson. But I have hopes of getting over it. When my account becomes really respectable, I, doubtless, shall be more than glad to avail myself of your advice. I shall value it highly.”

“It is yours at any time, Mr. Grinnell,” said the president, shaking hands. He did not show any surprise at the intimation of greater deposits in the future. It was as well that he did not. On Thursday of the following week, Mr. George K. Grinnell deposited an Assay Office check for $500,000 lacking a few cents. It made a million of gold bullion which the young man had sold to the United States Assay Office, and of which he had deposited the proceeds in the Metropolitan National Bank. The president did not forget the incident when the cashier sent in a memorandum, but promptly summoned the official.

“Mr. Grinnell has become quite a depositor, I see,” he said.

“Every Thursday he comes with an Assay Office—”

“Yes, I know. It seems to be a habit with, him. If he should come in next Thursday, or at any time, let me know at once. Don’t ask him to come into my office, but let me know he is here, at once. Has he drawn any checks on us?”

“No, sir; not one.”

“If he does, let me see it.”

“It is—er—rather curious,” ventured the cashier.

“Not at all,” said Mr. Dawson curtly. The cashier left him without another word.

The advent of the strange depositor was curiously awaited by the tellers to whom the cashier had spoken. The cashier himself offered to bet his assistant that Grinnell would not deposit more than $500,000. The fat assistant decided to lose a five-dollar hat to his superior, and then to ask that same superior for an increase in salary. He bet that Grinnell would deposit a million.

“You see,” he said, with a look of intense astuteness, that his device of intentionally losing the bet might not be too obvious, “he deposited first a hundred thousand, then a hundred and fifty; then two-fifty; then he doubled and deposited five hundred thousand. I think he will double again and deposit a million.”

“Millions don’t grow on bushes. I’ll take the bet,” remarked the cashier stingingly. His subordinate covered a chuckle of success by a woeful smile of self-depreciation. But his exultation over the increase in salary to follow the artistic loss of a five-dollar hat did not endure long. Grover, one of the receiving tellers, on Thursday hastily sent him word that Mr. Grinnell had deposited $1,000,000, and was being delayed at the teller’s window on a pretext of attending to some clerical detail. The assistant cashier straightway walked into the president’s room.

“Mr. Grinnell is outside, sir. He has just deposited one million.”

“Very well, Mr. Williams.”

The president walked out of his private office, through the corridor, into the main office of the bank. On one side there was a long, marble counter, surmounted by a bronze railing, having windows barred like those of a jail, behind which were imprisoned the tellers and the clerks; on the other, the plain walls, with the long panels of polished marble, and the high, little upright desks over the steam radiators at which the customers made out the deposit slips or signed checks. It was not unlike a church, this temple of Mammon, known in Wall Street as “Fort Dawson.” It had a look of austerity that impressed people. The clink of gold was aristocratically inaudible; the clerks habitually spoke in whispers, and outsiders felt this and lowered their voices instinctively. A bank which tolerated boisterous humour would not have been quite safe enough. This one repelled levity, and attracted deposits; it had nearly $150,000,000 of other people’s money. Great was Dawson and his golden fort!

The president walked, hatless, through the corridor as though he were going to another department and met, quite accidentally, Mr. George K. Grinnell, who happened to be there.

“How do you do, Mr. Grinnell? I’m glad to see you,” he said cordially. There was no pretence about his cordiality; the man had on deposit two millions. But it was not this particular man’s deposit which caused the busy clerks to make mistakes in adding their rows of figures; they were accustomed to the fluctuating, semi-fictitious millions of the great stock-gamblers. It was that Mr. Dawson should be so cordial to any man.

“I am very well, thanks,” said the young man. “So are you, I can see.”

“You have good eyes. Well, what have you done now?” asked the president playfully.

“Deposited a little more.” It was said calmly, not with theatrical nonchalance.

“How much?” The president, naturally, was asking for information he could not be expected to have.

“A million this time.”

The president put his hand chummily on his customer’s shoulder. “Young man,” he said, in mock seriousness, “when will this nefarious work cease?”

“I’ll stop when you tell me you’d rather I went to some other bank,” answered Grinnell, smiling.

The president shook his head as if in despair.

“You are incorrigible. Well, come early and often. Drop in on me whenever you feel like it; glad to see you at any time.”

“Thanks, Mr. Dawson,” he nodded, smilingly, but Mr. Dawson felt non-committally. Mr. Dawson thereupon became serious-He could not help it, try as he might. He drew the self-possessed young man aside.

“My dear Mr. Grinnell, it is a great deal of money to have idle and, naturally, it is impossible for me to think it businesslike. If you contemplate employing it in the near future, of course, it alters matters. But, if we are to allow you interest on it, why—”

“Mr. Dawson, pardon me for interrupting you. As I said to you before, I have not the slightest intention of disturbing this account for some time to come. I am not bothering about investments. They can wait. And I am willing to waive the interest. This may be unbusinesslike, but I am engaged in—ah—other matters, of greater importance.”

“Yes?” with an inviting inflection.

“Yes; I am in love.”

Both laughed. Then the discomfited president said jovially: “I don’t blame you, then. Love before business, by all means.” And with a final warm hand-shake, he passed on. But he resented what he considered the jocular evasion of the young man.