"I'll stop in on the way back to get my wheel. You'll be here, George?"
"Yes. See you later, John. Good luck to you."
IV
The afternoon was broiling. The sun came in, scarcely checked by the yellow shades; fell on and soaked into the smooth, varnished surfaces of the desks and tables, and turned the iron of the big vault into a sort of storage battery of heat. Even the electric fan in the president's office, which we had placed on top of the telephone closet (as near us as its length of wire would allow), gave but little relief.
Both of us were working in our shirt-sleeves, but the sweat stood on our brows, and my fingers were so sticky I could scarcely handle my bills. It was too hot for conversation even; so the only sounds in the room were the snipping of my shears, the crisp fluttering of the fresh, new bills as they fell one by one on the table; and the snapping of rubber bands as the cashier went over bundle after bundle of the bank paper, on the security of which all our positions depended.
As I said, it was too hot for talk; and besides, I had plenty to engross me in my own thoughts—which were about John, of course.
I began by thinking how profitable it would be to the bank if John might only have a baby every day; and then, as this was out of the question, fell to calculating how long this one that had just arrived would continue to work the same beneficial influence on her father's actions.
Presently, however, my ideas became more serious; and at last so serious that they brought about a reaction in the shape of a suspicion that perhaps I had been making too much out of the incident, after all. So I determined to get Mr. Young's opinion on the subject, if I could; and was just framing my first interrogatory, when the telephone rang.
"Claflin National?" said the voice.
"Yes."