if you put it that way, Mr. Meadows, and leave it to me, I will say candidly that I suppose the real reason for not promoting me is that Mr. Masters, being a man of sound judgment, feels that he can not do me justice under the circumstances. If I had my deserts I'd be president of the bank; but it would be too much to ask a gentleman at Mr. Masters's time of life to move out of his little office just to make room for a deserving young man."
"You may joke, but you know that Masters is jealous. Why doesn't he promote Farnsworth to be vice-president? You know that Farnsworth really runs the bank."
"It isn't his fault if he doesn't," said Millard in a half-whisper.
"I believe that if I made a move to advance both you and Farnsworth it could be carried." Meadows looked inquiringly at his companion.
"What would become of the cashiership?" asked Millard. "I suppose we could divide that between us." "Won't you try a glass of Moselle?" And he passed the bottle to Meadows, who poured out a glass of it – he never declined wine when some one else paid for it – while Millard kept on talking to keep from saying anything. "I like to drink the health of any man who proposes to increase my salary, Mr. Meadows." Millard observed with disgust that the bank director drank off the wine at a gulp as he might have taken any vulgar claret, with an evident lack of appreciation. Millard himself was a light drinker; nothing but the delicate flavor of good wine could make drinking tolerable to him. The mind of Meadows, however, was intent on the subject under discussion.
"The cashiership," he said, "could either be filled by some experienced man or it might be left vacant for a while."
Millard saw a vision of Meadows, the discouraged brother, stepping in over his head.
"If a cashier should be put in now," said Meadows, "it would end presently in old Rip Van Winkle's resigning, and then an advance along the whole line would move you up once more." Meadows thought that this sop would reconcile Millard to having his brother interpolated above him.
"That's a good plan," said Millard, using his finger-bowl; "and then if Mr. Farnsworth would only be kind enough to die in one of his attacks, and the other man should get rich by speculation and retire, I'd come to be president at last. That is the only place suited to a modest and worthy young man like myself."
This fencing annoyed Meadows, who was by this time salting and peppering his roast beef, glaring at it the while like a boa-constrictor contemplating a fresh victim in anticipation of the joys of deglutition. Millard saw the importance of letting Masters know about this new move, and feared that Meadows would attempt to put him under bonds of secrecy. So, as he rose to go, like a prairie traveler protecting himself by back-firing, he said:
"If you're really serious in this matter, Mr. Meadows, I suppose you'll take pains not to have it generally known. For one thing, if you won't tell anybody else, I'll promise you not to tell my wife."
"And if Farnsworth speaks to you about it," said Meadows, "don't tell him that I have said anything to you. He wanted to tell you himself."
"I'll not let him know that you said anything about it."
And with that Millard went out. The bait of the assistant cashiership was not tempting enough to draw him into this intrigue. The greater part of his capital was in the bank, and he knew that the withdrawal of Masters would be a misfortune to him. Finding that Farnsworth was out, Millard went to the president's room under color of showing him a letter of importance. A man of dignity doesn't like to seem to bear tales with malice prepense. When he was about to leave Millard said:
"I hear that a motion is to be made looking to changes in the personnel of the bank."
The president was a little startled; his first impression from this remark being that somehow Millard had got wind of the plans he had revolved and then discarded.
"What do you hear?" he said, in his usual non-committal way.
"Nothing very definite, but something that leads me to think that Mr. Farnsworth would like to be vice-president and that Meadows would consent to have his brother take the cashiership."
"No doubt, no doubt," said Mr. Masters, smiling. It was his habit to smile when he felt the impulse to frown. He did not like to seem ignorant of anything going on in the bank, so he said no more to Millard, but let the conversation drop. He presently regretted this, and by the time Millard had reached his desk he was recalled.
"You understand that Mr. Farnsworth and Meadows are acting in concert?"
"I have reason to think so."
"Do you think it would be wise to make Mr. Farnsworth vice-president?"
Millard turned the palms of his hands upward and shrugged his shoulders. He made no other reply than to add, "You know him as well as I do."
"Who would be a good man for the place?"
"Have you thought of Hilbrough?"
"Yes, he would bring real strength to the bank; and, Mr. Millard, there is one promotion I have long had in mind," said the president. "You ought to be made assistant cashier, with a considerably larger salary than you have been getting."
Millard made a slight bow. "I'm sure you don't expect me to offer serious opposition to that proposal." Then he could not refrain from adding, "I believe Mr. Farnsworth and Meadows have also reached that conclusion."
There was no opportunity to reply to this; Farnsworth was heard wheezing outside the door.
Masters thought rapidly that afternoon. He admitted to himself, as he had hardly done before, that he was growing old and that a successful bank ought to have some more vigorous man than he in its management; some man of ideas more liberal than Farnsworth's, and of more age and experience than this young Millard. His mind turned to Hilbrough, the real-estate agent in Montague Street, Brooklyn. First a poor clerk, then a small collector of tenement-house rents, then a prosperous real-estate agent and operator on his own account, he had come by shrewd investment to be a rich man. He was accustomed to make call loans to a large amount on collateral security, and his business was even now almost that of a private banker. A director in the Bank of Manhadoes from its beginning and one of its largest stockholders, he was the most eligible man to succeed Masters in the active management of its affairs, and the only man whose election once proposed would certainly command the support of the directors against the scheme of Farnsworth. He was the one possible man who would prove quite too large for Farnsworth's domineering. It was with a pang that Masters reflected that he too would be effaced in a measure by the advent of a man so vital as Warren Hilbrough; but there was for him only the choice between being effaced by Hilbrough's superior personality and being officially put out of the way by Farnsworth's process of slow torture. He saw, too, that a bank with four high-grade officers would have a more stable official equilibrium than one where the power is shared between two. The head of such an institution is sheltered from adverse intrigues by the counterpoise of the several officers to one another.
If Masters had needed any stimulus to his resolution to contravene the ambitious plans of the cashier, Mrs. Masters would have supplied it. When she heard of Farnsworth's scheme, she raised again her old cry of Carthago delenda est, Farnsworth must be put out. In her opinion nothing else would meet the requirement of poetic justice; but she despaired of persuading Masters to a measure so extreme. It was always the way. Mr. Masters was too meek for anything; he would let people run over him.
But Masters had no notion of being run over. He went to the office every day, and from the office he went to his country-place in New Jersey every afternoon. There was nothing in his actions to excite the suspicion of the cashier, who could not know that negotiations with Hilbrough, and the private
