"Remember, my dear sir, I am first on the spot," he said.
The words were significant. It meant a call for money from all creditors. It meant the swamping of their credit and absolute failure. Preserving his calmness, Grant picked up the firm's check-book, and glanced over the stubs.
Of the twenty thousand dollars paid in by Mori, but a trifle over one-half remained. There were other creditors at the door. To pay one meant a demand from the others. To refuse the payment of the bank's debt was to be posted as insolvent. That meant ruin.
Sick at heart, Grant was on the point of adopting the latter course, when there came a sudden and most unexpected change in the state of affairs.
CHAPTER X. MORI SHOWS HIS GENEROSITY.
During the scene in the private office of the firm Mori had remained silent and apparently indifferent. Apparently only—those who knew him best would have augured from the appearance of the two bright red spots in his dark cheeks that he was intensely interested.
He watched the movements of the crowd at the door, he listened to the demand of the bank president, and he noted Grant's struggle to appear calm. Then just as the lame youth turned from the check-book to his auditors with an announcement of their failure to pay trembling upon his lips, the young Japanese introduced himself into the proceedings.
"What is the meaning of this, sir?" he asked the president, sharply. "What do you wish?"