THE RUN
As the judge was a warden, he seldom swore. He didn’t think “the Devil”
was a swear word, and he said it now very emphatically, as he clutched
his collar.
“A run on my bank! On the First National! That’s as firm as a rock.
Inspectors here only a month ago. Why should anybody run, and what for?
I can pay every dollar—give me time,” he said.
Then, as he remembered the five thousand dollars Godfrey Sheldon was to
draw that morning, and probably had drawn by that time, he gave a little
groan, for in case of a prolonged run that might cripple him, he had so
much money loaned out.
“Drive on, Dave. Drive like thunder—right into the midst of ’em, an’ run
’em down if they don’t get out of the way,” he shouted, standing up
again and gesticulating with the hand which was not fumbling at his
throat, in which his heart seemed swelling.
There was no need to urge Dave to drive on. He was as anxious to reach
the place as his master, and in a few minutes the black horses were
reined up at the door of the bank, the crowd dividing right and left to
give them way, and staring at the figure the judge presented, standing
now on the seat and shaking his fist at the faces confronting him.
There were at least one hundred people there—men, women and children,
especially boys, some frantically pushing and elbowing each other in
their efforts to get to the door, from which two or three were emerging
with a satisfied look on their faces and something held tight in their
hands. Others were spectators drawn there from curiosity, but all
filling the walk and the street, and making Fred Lansing think of a mob
he once saw in Paris. He had sprung to the ground and said to his uncle:
“David had better take the ladies home at once. This is no place for
them.”
“Yes, yes,” the judge replied, and when his sister asked if she should
tell his wife to stop the party, he answered: “Stop the party! Thunder!
No; why should she? That would be confessing I was broke. I ain’t by a
long shot. I’ve money enough to pay these cattle a hundred times over.
Not in the bank this minute, of course. But I can get it. The cusses!
What do they mean? Running me! Me!”
He shook his fist threateningly at the crowd, one of whom, a ragged boy,
called out derisively:
“Shake away, old money bags; nobody’s afraid of you, but my mother wants
her fifty dollars, and she’s goin’ to have it. She put ten dollars in
Saturday, and nobody told her you was busted.”
The judge did not hear him. He was struggling up the steps, assisted by
Fred to the door, where he was met by Herbert, who was white as a
corpse, with a scared look on his face.
“Oh, father,” he cried, “I’m so glad you have come. I should have sent
for you, but thought you were off in the country driving. There’s the
old Harry to pay.”
“Pay him then! There’s money enough,” the judge roared, going behind the
screens and facing the two women presenting their claims and demanding
their money, which they promptly received.
It was a genuine run, such as small places like Merivale seldom see, and
just how it commenced, or why, no one could tell, unless it were Godfrey
Sheldon, who was a weak-brained, pig-headed, jealous man, thinking far
too much of himself since his one term in the Legislature. He was very
proud of his friendship with Judge White, whom he would sometimes slap
on the shoulder and call “old boy,” by way of showing his familiarity
with the great man of the town. He knew he was the heaviest depositor in
the White Bank, and presumed a good deal on that account, and sometimes
chafed because no attention was ever paid his family by Mrs. White and
not much by Herbert.
“My girls are as good as anybody,” he was wont to say of his two
red-headed daughters, who fully concurred with him in his opinion of
themselves.
They certainly were as good as the Gibsons, they thought; and when the
grand party came to the front and the Gibsons were invited and they were
not, their jealousy was at once excited, but did not reach the boiling
point, which meant mischief, until a report reached them that Mrs. White
had been heard to say that, aside from the Gibsons, she drew the line on
all country bumpkins, and especially the Sheldons. This, of course, was
an exaggeration of what she did say, but, passing through the many lips
it did, it is strange it had not assumed greater proportions by the time
it reached and fired the Sheldon household.
The girls were furious, and their father was not far behind them. For
him, an Honorable, to be classed with country bumpkins was an insult not
to be borne meekly; and, like most small natures, revenge of some sort
was his first thought.
But how should he take it? What could he do that a man like Judge White
would feel? Suddenly he remembered his money, which he had always kept
in the White Bank, and as he was needing a small part of it soon, he
would take it all out and deposit it with Tom Grey. There was a man who
did not feel so all-fired big, and whose daughter was nice to his girls
and had once spent a day at his house and had Sarah and May at a
musicale the winter before. Yes, he’d withdraw his money from Bob White
and give it to Tom Grey, he decided, without any thought of creating a
panic which might result in a run; nor had he any such idea when he
spoke to two or three of his neighbors and told them what he was going
to do, giving no reason, when asked for one, except that he knew what he
was about and accompanying the words with a gesture which was more
suggestive than words.
Some people are always suspicious of the soundness of a bank, and the
few to whom Mr. Sheldon told his intentions were of this class, and all
had money in White’s Bank.
If Godfrey Sheldon, who was hand in glove with the judge, was going to
take out his money, there must be something wrong. They would go to the
village and see.
Accordingly, that night there was quite a number of people from the
country in town, talking low and confidentially to others; and before
bedtime there was scarcely a depositor who had not heard it hinted that
the White Bank was shaky. A few disbelieved it, while others thought it
well to be on the safe side and take out what money they had before it
was too late. The country depositors were specially cautious, and on
hand early. Before nine o’clock many vehicles were in town. Some were at
the hotel; others were under shade trees and in the shed behind the
church, while the owners were congregated near the banks, waiting for
them to open. These were joined at intervals by some of the villagers,
and as the news spread the number increased and more were coming, until
the street was black with them.
Herbert, who was downtown on an errand for his mother, had stepped into
the bank to speak to the cashier, with whom he was talking for some
time, unconscious of what was taking place outside. Hearing the sound of
many voices, followed at last by a vigorous shaking of the heavy doors,
which had not yet been opened to the public, he looked from the window
and, seeing the crowd, exclaimed to the cashier:
“Harry, Harry, what is all this? and why are there so many people in
front of the bank acting as if they meant to get in?”
One glance at the crowd, and it flashed upon the cashier like a
presentiment that here was a run. He had been in one before, when the
bank, which if left to its ordinary business, was safe, went down under
the overwhelming tide, and his voice shook as he said:
“It looks like a run!”
“A run!” Herbert repeated. “Not on father’s bank, sure. It must be on
Grey’s.”
“No, it is this one,” the cashier replied. “They are all looking at our
windows, and don’t you hear the pounds on the door; and see, there are
more coming—a lot of women, headed by old Nancy Sharp, with her arms
akimbo and her hair down her back. It is a regular run, and no mistake!”
“Well, let them run. There’s money enough to pay all their demands,
isn’t there?” Herbert asked.
The cashier shook his head doubtfully.
“If we had on hand all we have loaned out we could stand it. But no bank
has that. The loans are greater, of course, than the amount kept for
emergencies, and if all the depositors spring upon us, as most are
likely to do if one does, we may be swamped for a time. There’s Sheldon
gave notice last night that he must have his five thousand to-day. If he
would wait till to-morrow, when a heavy loan we have out will be paid,
we shall be all right. But he won’t; he is a kind of a dog in the
manger, and something has gone wrong. He’ll draw his money, and others
will follow. Men are like sheep, and women are worse. There is Sheldon
now talking to some men and pointing this way.”
The pounding on the door was loud by this time, mingled with calls:
“Let us in! It’s time! It’s after nine. You have no business to keep us
out, and we mean to come in.”
“Shall we keep them out till father comes?” Herbert asked, his teeth
chattering with the cold chill which had come over him and increased
with the sounds outside. It was a kind of roar now, as the cries, “Open
the door!” became louder—cries of more women than men, as the former
were more excited. “Say, shall we keep them out till father comes?”
Herbert asked again.
“By no means,” the cashier replied. “That would confess our fear.
Possibly we can persuade Sheldon to leave a part of his till to-morrow.
Open the door, Charlie,” and he turned to the office boy, whose eyes
were like saucers as he shot back the bolts and threw open the doors so
suddenly that two or three of the foremost ones, pushed by those behind,
fell headlong across the threshold.
Mr. Sheldon, who was in advance, was the first on his feet and inside
the bank.
He knew by this time what the crowd meant, and he had explained, as far
as he could, that he was only drawing his money because he wanted it,
and not because he was afraid. He might as well have talked to the wind.
Their minds were made up. If he wanted his money, they wanted theirs,
and meant to have it.
When Mr. Sheldon presented himself before the cashier and said to him,
“You know I told you I was coming for my money. I suppose it’s ready?”
the cashier replied very blandly, “Certainly it is.”
At this point Herbert, who was standing by the cashier, with a face
white as marble, interposed and said:
“Of course, you can have it, but it seems to me it is a large sum to
draw out without a moment’s warning. Can’t you wait for a part of it
till to-morrow? Suppose those fellows behind you should all demand their
money at once, what should we do?”
This was like a red flag to a maddened bull. Herbert was the son of the
house, and it was undoubtedly his doings that the Gibsons were invited
and his daughters slighted. Any regret Sheldon might have had for what
he was doing vanished, and he replied:
“Hanged if I care what you do,” while the cashier, who was counting out
the bills, kicked Herbert with his foot trying to stop him, as he saw he
was making matters worse by showing fear.
The cashier, however, tried what he could do by saying very cheerfully:
“You can have more if you wish, but it would be a convenience if you
could wait till to-morrow, when a heavy loan is to be paid.”
He had half the money counted, and paused for a reply, which was, “I
shan’t wait an hour. I want my money _now_!” the words accompanied by a
nod to emphasize each word.
“All right,” the cashier answered, going on with his work, while one or
two standing behind Mr. Sheldon said:
“What’s that he says? Wants us to wait till to-morrow? Not much! We will
have it now.”
The words were caught up by those outside, and ran through the crowd
like wildfire, gaining strength as they ran, until by the time they
reached the outer circle it was affirmed that the bank could pay no more
that day.
Those who have witnessed a run on a bank know how the excitement grows
until people, ordinarily cool and sane, grow wild and mad, and howl
sometimes like beasts at the prospect of losing their money. And so it
was now at the White Bank, where the excitement was intense, especially
among the small depositors—the women, whose little was all in the bank.
These were furious, and made their way to the door just as Mr. Sheldon
came out, with a half sheepish look on his face, as if he had done a
mean thing, and was half sorry for it.
“But Bob White can stand it,” he thought, as he walked into Grey’s Bank,
where the consternation and excitement was nearly as great as in the
other bank, and where Louie on her wheel had just arrived, breathless
and panting.
When Mr. Grey first saw the crowd gathering in the street he had no
suspicion of the cause until he heard the pounds upon the door and the
cries to be let in. Then he said to Mr. Wilson, his cashier:
“What upon earth is the matter? Looks like a run?”
“’Tis a run,” Mr. Wilson answered dryly, opening their own door and
stepping outside, where he stood, occasionally exchanging a word with
some one asking if he thought the bank could stand the pressure.
Wilson didn’t know. All depended upon how much ready cash it had on
hand. No bank expected to be called on any minute for every dollar, he
said. Bob White could pay all he owed twice over, give him time, and his
advice was that the howling idiots disperse and go home.
The howling idiots had no thought of going home. Some of those who at
first had no intention to draw out their money concluded to do so now,
if they could get a chance. And there lay a trouble. It took some time
to pay off the applicants who were first in, and some time for them to
get out, so thickly were the people packed upon the steps, and so
unwilling were they to yield an inch of ground, and the excitement was
increasing when the judge’s carriage dashed down the street and up to
the door.
The sight of the judge standing on the seat and flourishing his hands
brought a slight lull in the storm of voices, and the people watched him
curiously and wondered what he was going to do. He did not know
himself—the whole thing was so appalling and unexpected that he trembled
with fear as he went up the steps, anxious to get inside, where he felt
he should be safer than outside in the midst of that cyclone. When at
last he was in the bank and stood inside the screen facing the two
women, he felt better, and glaring at them savagely, asked:
“How much do you want?”
“Twenty-five dollars that I earned with my eggs and chickens,” and
“Thirty dollars I earned by washing,” were the replies, as two pairs of
brown, hard hands were stretched out eagerly toward Harry Groves, the
cashier.
“Twenty-five dollars and thirty dollars! A big sum to make such a row
about. Pay ’em, Groves; and now get out of here,” the judge said
angrily; then, to the office boy, “Shut those doors a minute, and keep
that infernal rabble out till I can think and hear what you’ve done and
how much money there is left.”
It was not so easy a matter to shut the doors with that human wall
pressing against them, and only the tact of Fred Lansing availed to do
it. He was very cool and calm and reassuring, asking the people to stand
aside a moment, and telling them the doors should certainly be opened
again.
“The judge has just come,” he said, “and this is a great surprise. He
wants to hear something about it from his clerks, and can’t very well
with so much noise in the street, if the door is open. So, my good lady,
if you will please step out, I am sure others will follow you. That’s
right; thank you.”
This was to Nancy Sharp, who had fought her way into the vestibule and
was holding aloft her bank-book and flourishing her bare, red arms,
which showed frequent acquaintance with soapsuds. She had money in both
banks, and, although she had not much in White’s, she didn’t propose to
lose it, she said, and she at first looked defiantly at Fred Lansing,
when he tried to clear the vestibule. But when he beamed upon her a
smile which few women ever resisted and called her “my good lady,” she
was vanquished at once, and walked out, saying to her companions, who
were all women, “Come on, gals, but stick close to the door, so’s to get
in the minit it is opened. It will be opened?” and she looked at Fred,
who answered:
“Certainly, madam. I give you my word of honor. It will be opened and
you will be paid.”
“All right,” and Nancy nodded familiarly to him as she took her place on
the steps outside and stood very near to Louie, who had entered her
father’s bank at the rear and had come to the front door, where she
stared astounded at the scene and thankful that it was not her father’s
bank on which the run was made.
There was a brass railing in the centre of the stone steps leading to
the entrance of the two banks, and as Louie leaned against it her arm
was seized by Nancy, who began to talk loud and volubly of the failure,
as she called it, and the loss to her if the judge did not pay.
“I was a fool to put any with him,” she said, “but I thought two places
safer than one, and now see what I’ve got by it. Twenty good, round
silver dollars in the bank, and every one means a hard day’s work
a-washin’—two for the Whites, two for your folks, one for Miss Smith,
one for Mrs. Dr. Adams, and one for——”
She would probably have enumerated every family represented by her
twenty round silver dollars if Louie had not stopped her with a “Hush-h!
Look up there. He is going to speak,” and she pointed to a balcony in
the second story, where Judge White stood, waving his hands to enforce
silence. He had inquired into matters a little, and learned from his
cashier how much had already been drawn from the bank, and about how
much currency there was left.
“Godfrey Sheldon’s five thousand was a blow,” the cashier said. “There
are three more who have each a thousand deposited. They haven’t appeared
yet, and I hope they won’t. It is the small depositors who are making
the biggest row, and there is a pile of ’em.”
The judge knew this, and knew, too, that within the last year or two,
when his rival had seemed to prosper, he had tried in underhand ways, by
sly insinuations and sneers against the Grey Bank, to secure the
patronage of these very people, who in a panic lose all sense and
reason, and now he was reaping his reward.
“If those big fellows keep quiet, and I think they will—they are a
different class—we may pull through; or if you could persuade them that
everything is sound and square and there is no need for this run. But I
doubt if you can. They keep coming from every quarter, like bees round a
honeypot. There’s a whole load of fresh ones!” the cashier said,
pointing to a democrat wagon full of men and women from the country,
driving up in hot haste, either to see what was going on or to get what
was due them, the latter most likely, as the moment they alighted they
pushed through the crowd, asking eagerly, “Are we too late? Has it
bust?”
The judge groaned, and thought a moment. He was perspiring at every
pore, and had removed his coat and necktie and collar, so as to breathe
more freely.
“I’ll speak to ’em,” he said. “I’ll tell ’em to go home. By the Lord, I
wish I had a shotgun! I’d fire into ’em. It’s like a strike, and against
me—_me_!”
He was purple in the face, and shaking with rage, and Fred Lansing
doubted the expediency of his speaking to the crowd in his present mood.
But he was determined, and nothing could stop him. The idiots would
listen to _him_, Judge White, and going up the stairs which led from his
rear office to the hall of the second floor, he entered a law office
along whose windows a narrow balcony ran. This was filled with the
occupants of the second floor, but they made room for the judge, whose
voice, always strong and powerful, rang out like a great horn, and
attracted every eye to him as he stood, coatless and hatless, with
collar and necktie gone, his face purple, except his nose and lips,
which were ghastly white. He was not much like the faultlessly attired
man the people had been accustomed to see driving in his handsome
carriage behind his black horses and his coachman in brown-coated and
brass-buttoned livery, a thing some had ridiculed as airs, and others
had resented as a badge of servitude not fitted to a small place like
Merivale. The judge was not popular, and had never tried to make himself
so, except when there was something to be gained by it. As a rule, he
was haughty and arrogant, ignoring the common people entirely, or
noticing them with a nod which told the distance he thought there was
between them and himself.
At sight of him and the sound of his voice shouting, “Order, you
fellows! Order, I say! Don’t you hear me?” a hush fell for a moment on
the crowd; then, a group of boys, some of whom had felt the weight of
his gold-headed cane when he caught them in his melon patch, set up a
caterwauling, with cries of:
“There he is! There’s old money bags! Isn’t he a beauty? He’s going to
make a speech. Better give us what you owe us than your gab.”
But for Fred Lansing, Herbert would have rushed into the street and
collared the boys insulting his father, who tottered as if about to fall
and leaned heavily on his cane, as the cries came up to him, louder and
more vociferous.
“Silence, you ragamuffins, you villains, you fools!” he roared,
flourishing his cane in the air, and in his backward sweep almost
hitting Fred Lansing, who had hurried up the stairs and stood at his
side, with an arm on his shoulder to steady him, and something in his
manner which commanded attention and respect.
“My dear friends, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “Please keep quiet
and let the judge speak and explain matters, which he can do to your
entire satisfaction.”
Cries of “Go on, go on; hear, hear!” now came from the boys, one of whom
was knocked down by a sympathizer with the judge, who saw the act and
called out, “Yes, that’s it; knock ’em all down; wring their necks; send
for the police and have ’em arrested, every mother’s son of ’em.”
“Hush! Hush!” Fred Lansing said in a whisper. “Go it mild, or you are
lost.”
It was not in the judge’s nature to “go it mild,” but he made an effort
and began to explain that there was no earthly reason for this outrage,
and he didn’t know how it happened or who started it. Whoever did was an
infernal fool, and ought to be tarred and feathered. “Running on _me_!
Me! who has inspectors reg’lar. Now, if ’twas t’other bank, that runs
itself, with nobody to oversee what was going on, there might be some
sense in getting up this hullabaloo! But to spring it on me—_me_! It’s
an outrage. Lord Harry, don’t you know who I am!”
“Oh, rot, rot. We know who you be, so come to business and tell us how
many cents on a dollar you can pay,” came from the boys, who belonged to
the worst class in town, and were glad for this opportunity to scoff at
a big bug without fear.
“Hush! Go a little easier,” Fred Lansing said, and the judge replied,
“‘Tain’t so easy goin’ easy with such dirt.” Then, to the dirt, he
continued:
“Look here and listen. I can pay every red cent and a hundred times
more—only give me time. I’m an honest man, I am. Nobody ever said I
wasn’t, but no bank wants a thing sprung on it like this, and few can
stand it if everybody calls for their deposit and wants every dollar
taken out at once. Heavens and earth,” he continued, warming up to the
subject and growing more and more excited as he warmed, “are you fools
enough to suppose that all your deposits are lying just where I put ’em
when you brought ’em in? Where, I’d like to know, would I get my pay for
my trouble, if I didn’t loan ’em out, keeping enough on hand to satisfy
all reasonable demands, though not enough to meet a general run sprung
on me unawares. It’s something like this: Suppose you owed somebody, and
somebody else owed you enough to pay the somebody you owed, and the
somebody you owed should come up and insist on being paid, the day
before the somebody who owed you was going to pay what he owed, what
would you do?”
He was getting rather hazy with “the somebody who owed him” and “the
somebody whom he owed,” but his audience followed him pretty clearly as
he went on: “Just so with me. You come howling for your money, set on by
the Lord only knows who; but I can guess pretty well,” and he glanced
toward Grey’s Bank, while a low murmur of dissent began to run through
the crowd, and one or two voices called out, “You are off the track, old
chap.”
To this the judge paid no attention, and went on:
“Yes, I say you come howling like dogs, as if you thought every cent of
your money was lying loose in the bank, ready to be called out in a
minute. I tell you ’tain’t so; but to-morrow a big loan is coming in and
you shall have every d——”
He paused a moment, thinking to use a swear word, then changed his mind,
and added, “every darned dollar. Are you satisfied? If you are, go home
about your business, and be ashamed for the way you have treated
me—_me_! If not, do your worst, and be——” he did use a swear word then,
and added: “What are you going to do with your money when you get it?
Keep it in your houses till it is stolen by burglars, or what?”
The majority of his audience had seen the truth in his remarks, and a
few, who had intended to withdraw their money, if they could get a
chance, slipped to the opposite side of the street, where they stood
watching, what one of them said was “as good as a circus.” In response
to the judge’s question, “What are you going to do with your money when
you get it?” an answer came from a dozen throats: “Put it in Grey’s
Bank, where Sheldon has put his’n. It’s safe there. Grey is the man for
us. Grey is all right!”
“Put it there and be ——,” the judge swore again, while from the boys,
whose numbers had considerably increased, there went up “Three cheers
and a tiger for Grey, the honest banker, and a groan for “money bags.””
The cheers and tiger were given, but before the groan for “money bags”
the fence on which the boys were seated went down with a crash,
diverting the interest for a moment from the judge, who left the balcony
and returned to the bank, where he sank exhausted into a chair, looking
so white that Herbert was alarmed, and asked if they should not send for
a doctor.
“Thunder, no!” his father said. “What do we want of a doctor? More like
send for the police. Hear that thundering on the door, will you! Open,
and let ’em in; the sooner the farce is over the better. I b’lieve we
can stand it.”