“To think of that!” he said. “It beats everything!”
He read on with a chuckle:
“Erected by his sorrowing son, Joseph Pippitt. Born 13th December, 1821. Died 5th February, 1891. ‘I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.’”
This prophecy might or might not be true of the person interred beneath the tombstone. On its unfortunate inapplicability to his father, and on the tainting of the fountain of Louisiana justice, young Mr. Pippitt enjoyed twelve months’ quiet reflection.
HOW THEY STOPPED THE “RUN.”
There was a run on the Sandhill and District Bank. It had lasted the whole of one day, and had shown no signs of abating in the evening. If it lasted another day! Old Mr. Bradshaw wiped his brow. It had come just at the awkwardest time—just after the farmers had got their usual loans, just when securities were hard to realize; in fact, just at the moment when the bank, though in reality solvent, was emphatically not in a position in answer a long-continued demand for payment on the spot. Mr. Bradshaw groaned out all these distressing facts to his son Dick. It was, indeed, no use talking to Dick, for he took no interest in business, and had spent the day in a boat with the Flirtington girls; still, Mr. Bradshaw was bound to talk to someone.
“We shall have to put the shutters up. One day’s grace would save us, I believe; we could get the money then. But if they’re at us again to-morrow morning, we can’t last two hours.”