Jimmie peered out over the night-hung golf course. “Hunk of flying glass. Bomb.”
Mr. Wilson grunted. He seemed eager for the whole story. He leaned forward, to ask again. But his pride or some other factor restrained him. He sat back and smoked for a long time. Once, he looked directly at Jimmie and smiled, amiably, unsurely.
“You underrate your father,” he said suddenly.
“Do I?” Jimmie was not displeased.
“He’s a good banker.”
“Everybody says so.”
“I mean good, Jimmie. Not just technically. Good—inside. Shrewd, but not a widow-and-orphan squeezer. Tough, maybe, on people who can stand it. Not on the rest.
When they had that bank holiday your dad got his bank open before I did mine-and I was racing the old son-of-a-gun. Smart. I suppose in his personal safe he’s got a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of paper he’s taken over in the last thirty years. Loans people made that they couldn’t pay. He’s proud of the condition of that bank. And I wonder—I wonder if you ever heard that there were maybe a couple of hundred men in business in this town who would be out of business if your old man hadn’t taken some pretty wildcat chances on them—especially in the depression? Did you know that?”
“No,” said Jimmie. “Probably never thought a man could have loyalty to a bank.”
“I never thought much about his bank at all. I was never interested in it.”