“Pole’s? Pole’s!” Arthur cried, astounded; and he turned a shade paler. “Sir Peter Pole and Co.? You don’t mean it, sir? Why, if they go scores of country banks will go! Scores! They are agents for sixty or seventy, aren’t they?”
The banker nodded. His weariness was more and more apparent. “Yes, Pole’s,” he said gloomily. “And I heard it on good authority. The truth is—it has not extended to the public yet, but in the banks there is panic already. They do not know where the first crash will come, or who may be affected. And any moment the scare may spread to the public. When it does it will run through the country like wild-fire. It will be here in twenty-four hours. It will shake even Dean’s. It will shake us down. My God! when I think that for the lack of ten or twelve thousand pounds—which a year ago we could have raised three times over with the stroke of a pen—just for the lack of that a sound business like this——”
He broke off, unable to control his voice. He could not continue. Clement went out softly, and for a minute or so there was silence in the room, broken only by the ticking of the clock, the noise of wheels in the street, the voices of passers-by—voices that drifted in and died away again, as the speakers walked by on the pavement. Opposite the bank, at the corner of the Market Place, two dogs were fighting before a barber’s shop. A woman drove them off with an umbrella. Her “Shoo! Shoo!” was audible in the silence of the room.
Before either spoke again, Clement returned. He bore a decanter of port, a glass, a slice of cake. “D’you take this, sir,” he said. “You are worn out. And never fear,” cheerily, “we shall pull through yet, sir. There will surely be some who will see that it will pay better to help us than to pull us down.”
The banker smiled at him, but his hand shook as he poured out the wine. “I hope so,” he said. “But we must buckle to. It will try us all. A run once started—have there been any withdrawals?”
They told him what had happened and described the state of feeling in the town. Rodd had been going about, gauging it quietly. He could do so more easily, and with less suspicion, than the partners. People were more free with him.
Ovington held his glass before him by the stem and looked thoughtfully at it. “That reminds me,” he said, “Rodd had some money with us—three hundred on deposit, I think. He had better have it. It will make no difference one way or the other, and he cannot afford to lose it.”
Arthur looked doubtful. “Three hundred,” he said, “might make the difference.”
“Well, it might, of course,” the banker admitted wearily. “But he had better have it. I should not like him to suffer.”
“No,” Clement said. “He must have it. Shall I see to it now? The sooner the better.”