"Do you suppose I can help you?" queried John, sympathetically.
"I'm going to tell you about it, anyway, and see what you think. Maybe it looks pretty queer to you that I should come here and make a confidant of you when I hardly know you, but I have all kinds of faith in you, and this matter touches people I like immensely, and I know you'll regard all I say as confidential."
He stopped, and let his fat hands stray vaguely over his knees.
"Certainly I'll keep still, Dillard, and I'll be glad to help you all I can."
"You see it's about the Dudleys. I don't suppose you know it, but they're poor as Job's turkey. All they've got is that house and an acre or two of ground and that horse, and—fifty shares of bank stock. The old man bought this stock when he got too bad off to manage his racers properly—sold them, you see, and invested his money this way, so that he wouldn't have any worry, and it'd bring 'em in just enough to live on. The bank's boomin', doin' the best business it ever has, and has been declaring a five per cent, semi-annual dividend. That's ten per cent, a year on the Major's investment, which means five hundred dollars per annum for him and Miss Julia to live on—nothin' handsome, you see, but it'll keep 'em from gettin' hungry. Now these people are my friends, and I hate to see 'em suffer."
"Well, what's the worry? Is the bank insolvent? You just said it was doing a fine business."
"Best in its history! There's a dividend due the last of this month, but it's not going to be paid!"
Glenning wheeled from where he was bending over his open trunk.
"Why isn't it going to be paid?"
"I'll tell you."