Arrived at home, Mr. Grey tried to seem natural, and joked Louie about her new dresses, which she could not help looking at, if it were Sunday; but there was a glitter in his eyes and a drawn look about his mouth which his wife remembered afterward and understood. When dinner was over he said he was going for a walk, to see if it would not clear his head, which felt a little heavy. Taking a circuitous route, he came at last to the house of Lawyer Blake, a personal friend whom he could trust, and who had done business for him. There was no hesitancy now on his part, and his manner was cool and collected as he began:
“I am totally ruined! Bank will be closed to-morrow, and I have come to you for advice.”
Mr. Blake looked at him in astonishment, as he went on; “I don’t know much about such matters, but I suppose there must be an assignee, and I want you for that and want you to see to things generally. There’ll be a terrible row—worse than the White’s—and I feel as if I were losing my mind.”
The lawyer asked no questions as to how it had happened. He thought he knew, and promised to do whatever he could.
“Have you thought of preferred creditors? Are there none whom you wish to have paid in full?” he asked.
“It is a farce to name any,” Mr. Grey replied. “There is so little that to select a big depositor would be wrong. But, yes”—and in his eyes there was a laugh as he saw the absurdity of what he was about to suggest—“I will name one—old Nancy Sharp.”
“Nancy Sharp!” the lawyer repeated in surprise. “Are you crazy?”
“Very nearly so,” Mr. Grey replied; “but Nancy shall be the one. She took twenty dollars from White’s Bank, and put them into mine, where she already had a small sum. I have them intact yet, with her private mark upon them, and I want you to pay her back the same dollars. She has added small sums from time to time—put in five dollars yesterday—and now has in all some seventy-five dollars. I have quite a regard for Nancy. She’ll lead the mob, if there is one, and show fight, too!”
Nothing the lawyer said could dissuade Mr. Grey from his purpose, and he gave it up, and Nancy’s name went in as the sole preferred creditor.
For an hour or more the interview lasted, and at its close the preliminary steps for the closing of the bank had been decided; the assignment was drawn ready for execution the next morning, and Mr. Grey went home in quite a cheerful state of mind.