The immemorial traditions of Old Spain, backed by the counsel of a brazen
sun, made a last stand against the inexorable centuries: Tucson was at
siesta; noonday lull was drowsy in the corridors of the Merchants and
Miners Bank. Green shades along the south guarded the cool and quiet
spaciousness of the Merchants and Miners, flooded with clear white light
from the northern windows. In the lobby a single client, leaning on the
sill at the note-teller's window, meekly awaited the convenience of the
office force.
The Castilian influence had reduced the office force, at this ebb hour of
business, to a spruce, shirt-sleeved young man, green-vizored as to his
eyes, seated at a mid-office desk, quite engrossed with mysterious
clerical matters.
The office force had glanced up at Mr. Johnson's first entrance, but only
to resume its work at once. Such industry is not the custom; among the
assets of any bank, courtesy is the most indispensable item. Mr. Johnson
was not unversed in the ways of urbanity; the purposed and palpable
incivility was not wasted upon him; nor yet the expression conveyed by
the back of the indefatigable clerical person--a humped, reluctant, and
rebellious back. If ever a back steeled itself to carry out a distasteful
task according to instructions, this was that back. Mr. Pete Johnson
sighed in sympathy.
The minutes droned by. A clock, of hitherto unassuming habit, became
clamorous; it echoed along the dreaming corridors. Mr. Johnson sighed
again.
The stone sill upon which he leaned reflected from its polished surface a
face carved to patience; but if the patient face had noted its own
reflection it might have remarked--and adjusted--eyebrows not so patient,
flattened to a level; and a slight quiver in the tip of a predatory nose.
The pen squeaked across glazed paper. Mr. Johnson took from his pocket a
long, thin cigar and a box of safety matches.
The match crackled, startling in the silence; the clerical person turned
in his chair and directed at the prospective customer a stare so baleful
that the cigar was forgotten. The flame nipped Johnson's thumb; he
dropped the match on the tiled floor and stepped upon it. The clerk
hesitated and then rose.
"He loves me--he loves me not!" murmured Mr. Johnson sadly, plucking the
petals from an imaginary daisy.
The clerk sauntered to the teller's wicket and frowned upon his customer
from under eyebrows arched and supercilious; he preserved a haughty
silence. Before this official disapproval Peter's eyes wavered and fell,
abashed.
"I'll--I'll stick my face through there if you'd like to step on it!" he
faltered.
The official eyebrows grew arrogant.
"You are wasting my time. Have you any business here?"
"Ya-as. Be you the cashier?"
"His assistant."
"I'd like to borrow some money," said Pete timidly. He tucked away the
unlit cigar. "Two thousand. Name of Johnson. Triangle E brand--Yavapai
County! Two hundred Herefords in a fenced township. Three hundred and
twenty acres patented land. Sixty acres under ditch. I'd give you a
mortgage on that. Pete Johnson--Peter Wallace Johnson on mortgages and
warrants."
"I do not think we would consider it."
"Good security--none better," said Pete. "Good for three times two
thousand at a forced sale."
"Doubtless!" The official shoulders shrugged incredulity.
"I'm known round here--you could look up my standing, verify titles, and
so on," urged Pete.
"I could not make the loan on my own authority."
Pete's face fell.
"Can't I see Mr. Gans, then?" he persisted.
"He's out to luncheon."
"Be back soon?"
"I really could not say."
"I might talk to Mr. Longman, perhaps?"
"Mr. Longman is on a trip to the Coast."
Johnson twisted his fingers nervously on the onyx sill. Then he raised
his downcast eyes, lit with a fresh hope.
"Is--is the janitor in?" he asked.
"You are pleased to be facetious, sir," the teller replied. His lip
curled; he turned away, tilting his chin with conscious dignity.
Mr. Johnson tapped the sill with the finger of authority.
"Young man, do you want I should throw this bank out of the window?" he
said severely. "Because if you don't, you uncover some one a grown man
can do business with. You're suffering from delusions of grandeur, fair
young sir. I almost believe you have permitted yourself to indulge in
some levity with me--me, P. Wallace Johnson! And if I note any more
light-hearted conduct on your part I'll shake myself and make merry with
you till you'll think the roof has done fell on you. Now you dig up the
Grand Panjandrum, with the little round button on top, or I'll come in
unto you! Produce! Trot!"
The cashier's dignity abated. Mr. Johnson was, by repute, no stranger
to him. Not sorry to pass this importunate borrower on to other hands,
he tapped at a door labeled "Vice-President," opened it, and said
something in a low voice. From this room a man emerged at once--Marsh,
vice-president, solid of body, strong of brow. Clenched between heavy
lips was a half-burned cigar, on which he puffed angrily.
"Well, Johnson, what's this?" he demanded.
"You got money to sell? I want to buy some. Let me come in and talk it up
to you."
"Let him in, Hudson," said Marsh. His cigar took on a truculent angle as
he listened to Johnson's proposition.
It appeared that Johnson's late outburst of petulance had cleared his
bosom of much perilous stuff. His crisp tones carried a suggestion of
lingering asperity, but otherwise he bore himself with becoming modesty
and diffidence in the presence of the great man. He stated his needs
briskly and briefly, as before.
"Money is tight," said Marsh curtly.
He scowled; he thrust his hands into his pockets as if to guard them; he
rocked back upon his heels; his eyes were leveled at a point in space
beyond Pete's shoulder; he clamped his cigar between compressed lips and
puffed a cloud of smoke from a corner of a mouth otherwise grimly tight.
Mr. Peter Johnson thought again of that unlit cigar, came swiftly to
tiptoe, and puffed a light from the glowing tip of Marsh's cigar before
that astonished person could withdraw his gaze from the contemplation of
remote infinities. The banker recoiled, flushed and frowning; the teller
bent hastily over his ledger.
Johnson, puffing luxuriously, renewed his argument with a guileless face.
Marsh shook his head and made a bear-trap mouth.
"Why don't you go to Prescott, Johnson? There's where your stuff is. They
know you better than we do."
"Why, Mr. Marsh, I don't want to go to Prescott. Takes too long. I need
this money right away."
"Really--but that is hardly our affair, is it?" A frosty smile
accompanied the query.
"Aw, what's wrong? Isn't that security all right?" urged Pete.
"No doubt the security is exactly as you say," said the banker, "but your
property is in another county, a long distance from here. We would have
to make inquiries and send the mortgage to be filed in Prescott--very
inconvenient. Besides, as I told you before, money is tight. We regret
that we cannot see our way to accommodate you. This is final!"
"Shucks!" said Pete, crestfallen and disappointed; he lingered
uncertainly, twisting his hat brim between his hands.
"That is final," repeated the banker. "Was there anything else?"
"A check to cash," said Pete humbly.
He went back into the lobby, much chastened; the spring lock of the door
snapped behind him.
"Wait on this gentleman, if you please, Mr. Hudson," said Marsh, and
busied himself at a cabinet.
Hudson rose from his desk and moved across to the cashier's window. His
lip curved disdainfully. Mr. Johnson's feet were brisk and cheerful on
the tiles. When his face appeared at the window, his hat and the long
black cigar were pushed up to angles parallel, jaunty and perilous. He
held in his hand a sheaf of papers belted with a rubber band; he slid
over the topmost of these papers, face down.
"It's endorsed," he said, pointing to his heavy signature.
"How will you have it, sir?" Hudson inquired with a smile of mocking
deference.
"Quick and now," said Pete.
Hudson flipped over the check. The sneer died from his face. His tongue
licked at his paling lips.
"What does this mean?" he stammered.
"Can't you read?" said Pete.
The cashier did not answer. He turned and called across the room:
"Mr. Marsh! Mr. Marsh!"
Marsh came quickly, warned by the startled note in the cashier's voice.
Hudson passed him the check with hands that trembled a little. The
vice-president's face mottled with red and white. The check was made
to the order of P.W. Johnson; it was signed by Henry Bergman, sheriff
of Pima County, and the richest cowman of the Santa Cruz Valley; the
amount was eighty-six thousand dollars.
Marsh glowered at Johnson in a cold fury.
"Call up Bergman!" he ordered.
Hudson made haste to obey.
"Oh, that's all right! I'd just as soon wait," said Pete cheerfully.
"Hank's at home, anyhow. I told him maybe you'd want to ask about the
check."
"He should have notified us before drawing out any such amount," fumed
Marsh. "This is most unusual, for a small bank like this. He told us he
shouldn't need this money until this fall."
"Draft on El Paso will do. Don't have to have cash."
"All very well--but it will be a great inconvenience to us, just the
same."
"Really--but that is hardly our affair, is it?" said Pete carelessly.
The banker smote the shelf with an angry hand; some of the rouleaus of
gold stacked on the inner shelf toppled and fell; gold pieces clattered
on the floor.
"Johnson, what is your motive? What are you up to?"
"It's all perfectly simple. Old Hank and me used to be implicated
together in the cow business down on the Concho. One of the Goliad
Bergmans--early German settlers."
Here Hudson hung up and made interruption.
"Bergman says the check is right," he reported.
Johnson resumed his explanation:
"As I was sayin', I reckon I know all the old-time cowmen from here to
breakfast and back. Old Joe Benavides, now--one of your best depositors;
I fished Joe out of Manzanillo Bay thirty year back. He was all drowned
but Amen."
Wetting his thumb he slipped off the next paper from under the rubber
band. Marsh eyed the sheaf apprehensively and winced.
"Got one of Joe's checks here," Pete continued, smoothing it out. "But
maybe I won't need to cash it--to-day."
"Johnson," said the vice-president, "are you trying to start a run on
this bank? What do you want?"
"My money. What the check calls for. That is final."
"This is sheer malice."
"Not a bit of it. You're all wrong. Just common prudence--that's all. You
see, I needed a little money. As I was tellin' you, I got right smart of
property, but no cash just now; nor any comin' till steer-sellin' time.
So I come down to Tucson on the rustle. Five banks in Tucson; four of
'em, countin' yours, turned me down cold."
"If you had got Bergman to sign with you--" Marsh began.
"Tell that to the submarines," said Pete. "Good irrigated land is better
than any man's name on a note; and I don't care who that man is. A man
might die or run away, or play the market. Land stays put. Well, after my
first glimpse of the cold shoulder I ciphered round a spell. I'm a great
hand to cipher round. Some one is out to down me; some one is givin' out
orders. Who? Mayer Zurich, I judged. He sold me a shoddy coat once. And
he wept because he couldn't loan me the money I wanted, himself. He's one
of these liers-in-wait you read about--Mayer is.
"So I didn't come to you till the last, bein' as Zurich was one of your
directors. I studied some more--and then I hunted up old Hank Bergman and
told him my troubles," said Pete suavely. "He expressed quite some
considerable solicitude. 'Why, Petey, this is a shockin' disclosure!' he
says. 'A banker is a man that makes a livin' loanin' other people's
money. Lots of marble and brass to a bank, salaries and other expenses.
Show me a bank that's quit lendin' money and I'll show you a bank that's
due to bust, _muy pronto!_ I got quite a wad in the Merchants and
Miners,' he says, 'and you alarm me. I'll give you a check for it, and
you go there first off to-morrow and see if they'll lend you what you
need. You got good security. If they ain't lendin',' he says, 'then you
just cash my check and invest it for me where it will be safe. I lose the
interest for only four days,' he says--'last Monday, the fifteenth, being
my quarter day. Hold out what you need for yourself.'
"'I don't want any,' says I. 'The First National say they can fit me out
by Wednesday if I can't get it before. Man don't want to borrow from his
friends,' says I. 'Then put my roll in the First National,' says Hank.
That's all! Only--I saw some of the other old-timers last night." Pete
fingered his sheaf significantly.
"You have us!" said Marsh. "What do you want?"
"I want the money for this check--so you'll know I'm not permeated with
any ideas about heaping coals of fire on your old bald head. Come
through, real earnest! I'll see about the rest. Exerting financial
pressure is what they call this little racket you worked on me, I
believe. It's a real nice game. I like it. If you ever mull or meddle
with my affairs again I'll turn another check. That's for your official
information--so you can keep the bank from any little indiscretions. I'm
telling you! This isn't blackmail. This is directions. Sit down and write
me a draft on El Paso."
Marsh complied. Peter Johnson inspected the draft carefully.
"So much for the bank for to-day, the nineteenth," said Pete. "Now a few
kind words for you as the individual, Mr. George Marsh, quite aside from
your capacity as a banker. You report to Zurich that I applied for a loan
and you refused it--not a word more. I'm tellin' you! Put a blab on your
office boy." He rolled his thumb at young Hudson. "And hereafter if you
ever horn in on my affairs so much as the weight of a finger tip--I'm
tellin' you now!--I'll appear to you!"