PART ONE: THE FLOOD
The president looked up from the underwriters’ plan of the latest “Industrial” consolidation capital stock, $100,000,000; assets, for publication, $100,000,000 which the syndicate’s lawyers had pronounced perfectly legal. Judiciously advertised, the stock probably would be oversubscribed. The profits ought to be enormous. He was one of the underwriters.
“What is it?” he asked. He did not frown, but his voice was as though hung with icicles. The assistant cashier, an imaginative man in the wrong place, shivered.
“This gentleman,” he said, giving a card to the president, “wishes to make a deposit of one hundred thousand dollars.”
The president looked at the card. He read on it:
MR. GEORGE KITCHELL GRINELL
“Who sent him to us?” he asked.
“I don’t know, sir. He said he had a letter of introduction to you,” answered the assistant cashier, disclaiming all responsibility in the matter.
The president read the card a second time. The name was unfamiliar.
“Grinnell?” he muttered. “Grinnell? Never heard of him.” Perhaps he felt it was poor policy to show ignorance on any matter whatever. When he spoke again, it was in a voice overflowing with a dignity that was a subtle rebuke to all assistant cashiers: