"Sick this morning, Dillard?" queried Glenning, busy with the damaged clothes which still lay on the chair. "I'd as lieve have you for my first patient as anybody."
Dillard sighed, and shook his head dolorously.
"Not exactly sick, and not exactly well," he replied, "but it's precious little sleeping I did last night."
Glenning, briskly wielding a clothes brush, glanced at Dillard. He was evidently in the depths of despair, and had most likely come for consolation or advice.
"Do you suppose I can help you?" queried John, sympathetically.
"I'm going to tell you about it, anyway, and see what you think. Maybe it looks pretty queer to you that I should come here and make a confidant of you when I hardly know you, but I have all kinds of faith in you, and this matter touches people I like immensely, and I know you'll regard all I say as confidential."
He stopped, and let his fat hands stray vaguely over his knees.
"Certainly I'll keep still, Dillard, and I'll be glad to help you all I can."
"You see it's about the Dudleys. I don't suppose you know it, but they're poor as Job's turkey. All they've got is that house and an acre or two of ground and that horse, and--fifty shares of bank stock. The old man bought this stock when he got too bad off to manage his racers properly--sold them, you see, and invested his money this way, so that he wouldn't have any worry, and it'd bring 'em in just enough to live on. The bank's boomin', doin' the best business it ever has, and has been declaring a five per cent, semi-annual dividend. That's ten per cent, a year on the Major's investment, which means five hundred dollars per annum for him and Miss Julia to live on--nothin' handsome, you see, but it'll keep 'em from gettin' hungry. Now these people are my friends, and I hate to see 'em suffer."
"Well, what's the worry? Is the bank insolvent? You just said it was doing a fine business."
"Best in its history! There's a dividend due the last of this month, but it's not going to be paid!"
Glenning wheeled from where he was bending over his open trunk.
Dillard looked around to see that no doors were open, then leaned forward and spoke in a loud whisper.
"The president of our bank is a Mr. Marston. He's rich as Jersey cream, and he owns the bulk of stock in the institution. He hates the Dudleys like snakes, and he never loses a chance to do something that'll hurt 'em. The last meeting of the directors was the one at which the six months' dividend should have been declared. We've earned it all right, and more besides. There's no just reason under the sun why it shouldn't have been paid. The whole board was in favor of it but Marston. They had a warm session. They hold their meetings in a back room at the bank, and while it was a closed meeting, I knew that an argument was in progress, for they were there an hour and a half. But they can't go against Marston's wishes. I learned later that he insisted on buying a new safe for the bank, which costs a pile o' money, and also declared that some improvements had to be made in the bank building. The whole thing was bosh, for we have a good safe, and there are no improvements needed. It was just a well-aimed blow at the Dudleys, but it went through. The new safe and the improvements were ordered to record, and the dividend was passed. If that doesn't mean starvation for our friends then I don't know what I'm talkin' about."