“Hush! Hush!” Fred Lansing said in a whisper. “Go it mild, or you are lost.”
It was not in the judge’s nature to “go it mild,” but he made an effort and began to explain that there was no earthly reason for this outrage, and he didn’t know how it happened or who started it. Whoever did was an infernal fool, and ought to be tarred and feathered. “Running on me! Me! who has inspectors reg’lar. Now, if ’twas t’other bank, that runs itself, with nobody to oversee what was going on, there might be some sense in getting up this hullabaloo! But to spring it on me—me! It’s an outrage. Lord Harry, don’t you know who I am!”
“Oh, rot, rot. We know who you be, so come to business and tell us how many cents on a dollar you can pay,” came from the boys, who belonged to the worst class in town, and were glad for this opportunity to scoff at a big bug without fear.
“Hush! Go a little easier,” Fred Lansing said, and the judge replied, “‘Tain’t so easy goin’ easy with such dirt.” Then, to the dirt, he continued:
“Look here and listen. I can pay every red cent and a hundred times more—only give me time. I’m an honest man, I am. Nobody ever said I wasn’t, but no bank wants a thing sprung on it like this, and few can stand it if everybody calls for their deposit and wants every dollar taken out at once. Heavens and earth,” he continued, warming up to the subject and growing more and more excited as he warmed, “are you fools enough to suppose that all your deposits are lying just where I put ’em when you brought ’em in? Where, I’d like to know, would I get my pay for my trouble, if I didn’t loan ’em out, keeping enough on hand to satisfy all reasonable demands, though not enough to meet a general run sprung on me unawares. It’s something like this: Suppose you owed somebody, and somebody else owed you enough to pay the somebody you owed, and the somebody you owed should come up and insist on being paid, the day before the somebody who owed you was going to pay what he owed, what would you do?”
He was getting rather hazy with “the somebody who owed him” and “the somebody whom he owed,” but his audience followed him pretty clearly as he went on: “Just so with me. You come howling for your money, set on by the Lord only knows who; but I can guess pretty well,” and he glanced toward Grey’s Bank, while a low murmur of dissent began to run through the crowd, and one or two voices called out, “You are off the track, old chap.”
To this the judge paid no attention, and went on:
“Yes, I say you come howling like dogs, as if you thought every cent of your money was lying loose in the bank, ready to be called out in a minute. I tell you ’tain’t so; but to-morrow a big loan is coming in and you shall have every d——”
He paused a moment, thinking to use a swear word, then changed his mind, and added, “every darned dollar. Are you satisfied? If you are, go home about your business, and be ashamed for the way you have treated me—me! If not, do your worst, and be——” he did use a swear word then, and added: “What are you going to do with your money when you get it? Keep it in your houses till it is stolen by burglars, or what?”
The majority of his audience had seen the truth in his remarks, and a few, who had intended to withdraw their money, if they could get a chance, slipped to the opposite side of the street, where they stood watching, what one of them said was “as good as a circus.” In response to the judge’s question, “What are you going to do with your money when you get it?” an answer came from a dozen throats: “Put it in Grey’s Bank, where Sheldon has put his’n. It’s safe there. Grey is the man for us. Grey is all right!”