“I will see him.”
He busied himself once more with the typewritten documents before him, lost in its alluring possibilities, until he became conscious of a presence near him. He still waited, purposely, before looking up. He was a very busy man, and all the world must know it. At length he raised his head majestically, and turned—an animated fragment of a glacier—until his eyes rested on the stranger’s.
“Good-morning, sir,” he said politely.
“Good-morning, Mr. Dawson,” said the stranger. He was a young man, conceivably under thirty, of medium height, square of shoulders, clean-shaven, and clear-skinned. He had brown hair and brown eyes. His dress hinted at careful habits rather than at fashionable tailors. Gold-rimmed spectacles gave him a studious air, which disappeared whenever he spoke. As if at the sound of his own voice, his eyes took on a look of alert self-confidence which interested the bank president. Mr. Dawson was deeply prejudiced against the look of extreme astuteness, blended with the desire to create a favourable impression, so familiar to him as the president of the richest bank in Wall Street.
“You are Mr.——” The president looked at the stranger’s card as though he had left it unread until he had finished far more important business. It really was unnecessary; but it had become a habit, which he lost only when speaking to his equals or his superiors in wealth.
“Grinnell,” prompted the stranger, very calmly. He was so unimpressed by the president that the president was impressed by him.
“Ah, yes. Mr. Williams tells me you wish to become one of our depositors?”
“Yes, sir. I have here,” taking a slip of paper from his pocket-book, “an Assay Office check on the Sub-Treasury. It is for a trifle over a hundred thousand dollars.”
Even the greatest bank in Wall Street must have a kindly feeling toward depositors of a hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Dawson permitted himself to smile graciously.
“I am sure we shall be glad to have your account, Mr. Grinnell,” he said. “You are in business in——” The slight arching of his eyebrows, rather than the inflection of his voice, made his words a delicate interrogation. He was a small, slender man, greyhaired and grey-moustached, with an air of polite aloofness from trivialities. His manners were what you might expect of a man whose grandfather had been Minister to France, and had never forgotten it; nor had his children. His self-possession was so great that it was not noticeable.