“He’ll see you in just a moment, Mr. Thatcher. Take a chair, please,” she said in such a formal way that Jeff, fingering his hat brim nervously, sat down on the very edge of one of the big mahogany chairs lined up against the wall, wondering the while just how he was going to get on with the town’s most important banker.
Fortunate for the state of his nerves he did not have long to wait, for presently a buzzer, somewhere in the room, sounded sharply, and reminded Jeff of the noise an angry hornet makes just before it is ready to sting. The girl at the desk looked up at him and smiled.
“All right. You may go in now,” and Jeff mechanically got to his feet, opened another glass paneled door and discovered himself facing Mr. Davidson.
The banker looked at him coldly for a moment over the rims of his glasses and Jeff stood awkwardly in the doorway, hardly knowing just what to say or do.
Then a strange transformation took place on the countenance of Mr. Davidson. He smiled, and in his smile was all the warmth and good-fellowship Jeff could ask for. Immediately he felt at ease in the banker’s presence.
“Hello, young man. So you are Thatcher, the chap the Freeman printed so much about this morning, eh?” he said.
“Yes, sir,” admitted Jeff, “but you see I am on the staff and I guess that Sullivan, he’s the man who wrote the story, felt obliged to develop a hero so he picked on me. I didn’t do a thing that any other chap wouldn’t have done under the same circumstances, so I don’t deserve much credit,” and Jeff’s sincerity concerning his modesty made Mr. Davidson smile broader than ever.
“That’s a fine way to feel about it, my boy. But my inquiries, and I have made a number of them to-day, reveal to me that you are not fully aware of what you have done. The facts remain, Thatcher, that you saved a poor unfortunate from being burned to death and you recovered one hundred thousand dollars in Liberty Bonds. It seems to me that these things speak for themselves and speak rather plainly.” Again he smiled and Jeff felt decidedly self-conscious and embarrassed.
“You legitimately won a reward of $2,000, my boy,” went on the banker, “and it is yours if you care to claim it. You see—”