A moment later one of the deputies pried open the cash-drawer. The Special Agent was at his elbow.
"Oh, look what's here!" cried the deputy.
Thereupon the Agent of the Department of Justice impounded the contents of the cash-drawer, without counting the cash, checks, money-orders, etc., or giving any member of our firm a receipt for them.
Turning to the Scheftels officers and employees who had been placed under arrest, he ordered them removed from the room.
It was about as raw a performance as was ever witnessed in a peaceful brokerage firm's banking-room.
Bookkeepers were ordered to close up books. United States mail in the office was impounded, including mail that had been received in the office for delivery to others.
The Scheftels employees were commanded to stand in their places with arms folded. The desperadoes among them—those for whom a warrant had been issued and who had been jerked out and huddled together in the outer room—were then searched for deadly weapons. One penknife and the stub of a lead-pencil were found on their persons. The deadly knife was hardly sharp enough to serve the purpose of nail-manicuring. Not one of the men under arrest would have known how to use a revolver if it had been placed in his hands.
The men taken into custody were: Mr. Scheftels, aged 54, quiet and inoffensive, rounding out an honorable business career without a blemish of any kind on his character or standing; Charles F. Belser, one of the cashiers of the corporation and a 32d degree Mason, who never before in his life had been so much as charged with the violation of the spirit of a minor ordinance; Charles B. Stone, aged 60, another cashier whose sons and sons-in-law had served their country in the army and who, himself, was as peaceful as a class leader in a Sunday-school; John Delaney, Clarence McCormick, William T. Seagraves and George Sullivan, clerks of the establishment, who were as likely to offer resistance that would require gun-play to combat as were a quartette of psalm-singing children.
Mr. Scheftels protested in a dignified and self-respecting way against the brutal demonstration. He asked to see the authority for the raid. This was refused until after he and the other desperate characters were collected in another room. His demand to see the officers' warrant was met by a vulgar exclamation from the Special Agent, to the effect that, "If you don't shut up, we will put the irons on you! If you are looking for any trouble, you —— —— stiff, you will get what you are looking for!"
The absurdity of the armed invasion appealed to everybody but the ringleader of the raiders. It was a ludicrous situation from a service viewpoint. There had been no time up to the moment of the raid when a single man armed with proper authority could not have accomplished with decency and in good order everything and more than was done by the "rough house" and brutal invasion of the armed band.