He was not a depositor, and he did not like the judge, and with another grin, he chirruped to his horses and passed on, while the judge fell back in his seat again, gasping for breath and pulling at his collar as if it were too tight and choked him.
CHAPTER V
THE RUN
As the judge was a warden, he seldom swore. He didn’t think “the Devil” was a swear word, and he said it now very emphatically, as he clutched his collar.
“A run on my bank! On the First National! That’s as firm as a rock. Inspectors here only a month ago. Why should anybody run, and what for? I can pay every dollar—give me time,” he said.
Then, as he remembered the five thousand dollars Godfrey Sheldon was to draw that morning, and probably had drawn by that time, he gave a little groan, for in case of a prolonged run that might cripple him, he had so much money loaned out.
“Drive on, Dave. Drive like thunder—right into the midst of ’em, an’ run ’em down if they don’t get out of the way,” he shouted, standing up again and gesticulating with the hand which was not fumbling at his throat, in which his heart seemed swelling.
There was no need to urge Dave to drive on. He was as anxious to reach the place as his master, and in a few minutes the black horses were reined up at the door of the bank, the crowd dividing right and left to give them way, and staring at the figure the judge presented, standing now on the seat and shaking his fist at the faces confronting him.
There were at least one hundred people there—men, women and children, especially boys, some frantically pushing and elbowing each other in their efforts to get to the door, from which two or three were emerging with a satisfied look on their faces and something held tight in their hands. Others were spectators drawn there from curiosity, but all filling the walk and the street, and making Fred Lansing think of a mob he once saw in Paris. He had sprung to the ground and said to his uncle:
“David had better take the ladies home at once. This is no place for them.”
“Yes, yes,” the judge replied, and when his sister asked if she should tell his wife to stop the party, he answered: “Stop the party! Thunder! No; why should she? That would be confessing I was broke. I ain’t by a long shot. I’ve money enough to pay these cattle a hundred times over. Not in the bank this minute, of course. But I can get it. The cusses! What do they mean? Running me! Me!”