“There’s something else I have intended speaking to you about,” she said, dismissing the notes carelessly. “You haven’t had any nice new money in your bank for a long time, Mr. Burton. And old bills are perfectly horrible. I shouldn’t think people would stand it—these old, worn-out bills. Suppose a new bank should start up with a lot of new money—you wouldn’t last a day.”
The cashier laughed; Miss Dameron had a reputation for saying amusing and unexpected things.
“I’ll ask the teller to keep a fresh supply for you. We don’t want to lose your account, Miss Dameron.”
“Thank you, so much. And if father should come in please tell him I have the notes. I might miss him, you know.”
The cashier found a moment of leisure in which to speak to the president, an elderly gentleman with a well-trimmed beard and a fondness for red scarfs.
“There’s something doing in the Dameron family,” Burton announced.
“Has the old man murdered the girl or is he just torturing her to prolong the agony?” said the president.
“The girl’s all right. She has the whip hand.”
“She may think she has; but he’s a keen one, is Ezra.”
“Miss Dameron was just in to get those notes of Thomas Merriam’s widow we have for collection. The old man told me yesterday to go ahead and collect them without delay. The daughter came in this afternoon and said her father was very anxious that Mrs. Merriam should not be disturbed. He was even so worried about it that he sent Miss Dameron around to get the notes. I imagine he was troubled to death about it.”