CHAPTER XV.
Must Leave the Town.
At eleven o'clock the next day, Zeb Sawyer was to meet McElwin at the bank. The hour was tolled off by a grim old clock standing high in a corner, a rare old time piece with a history, or at least a past, of interest to McElwin, for it had been bought at the forced sale of fixtures belonging to a defunct bank. It struck with solemn self-importance, as if proclaiming the hour to foreclose a mortgage; and though not given to this sort of reflective speculation, McElwin must have been vaguely influenced by its knell-like stroke, for he nearly always glanced up as if a tribute were due to its promptness. A few minutes later Zeb Sawyer was shown into the room. The banker had been sitting in deep thought, with his legs stretched forth, and with his hands in his pockets, but he turned about when the clock struck, and as Sawyer entered the office he was busy with papers on a table in front of him.
"Good morning, Zeb; sit down."
"Hard at it, I see," said the young man, taking a seat at the opposite side of the table.
"Yes, day and night. No rest for the wicked, you know."
"I don't know as to that," Sawyer replied, "but I do know that there is mighty little rest for the man that wants to do anything in the world."
"You are right. The gospel of content builds poor houses. I never knew a happy man who wasn't lazy."