And Thompson did not like to think he had read Carr's look aright, because he was uncomfortably aware that he, Wes Thompson, was following pretty much in Ashe's footsteps, only on a smaller scale.
He tore the figured sheet into little strips, and went to bed.
CHAPTER XXIV
—AND THE MATCH THAT LIT THE FUSE—
At a minute or two of ten the next morning Thompson stopped his car before the Canadian Bank of Commerce. The bolt-studded doors were still closed, and so he kept his seat behind the steering column, glancing idly along Hastings at the traffic that flowed about the gray stone pile of the post-office, while he waited the bank's opening for business.
A tall young man, a bit paler-faced perhaps than a normal young fellow should be, but otherwise a fine-looking specimen of manhood, sauntered slowly around the corner of the bank, and came to a stop on the curb just abreast the fore end of Thompson's motor. He took out a cigarette and lighted it with slow, deliberate motions. And as he stood there, gazing with a detached impersonal air at the front of the Summit roadster, there approached him a recruiting sergeant.
"How about joining up this morning?" he inquired briskly.
"Oh, I don't know," the young man responded casually. "I hadn't thought about it."