banks were closed, you did not draw it before. Besides, what can you want with the money for only half an hour ? "
"Sir, do you know who I am?" demanded the minister.
"Yes, I know very well who you are," replied the cashier, " and all I can say is that I have no authority to loan you this money."
"Let him have it and charge it to me," exclaimed Smith, somewhat impatiently, thinking the cashier too particular.
The cashier gave the minister the money and made a ticket of it to Smith. The borrower hurried away. When he had gone the cashier turned to Smith, who had not yet left the place.
"Mark my word," said he, "that money goes upon the tiger."
"But he is a clergyman, and one of our best agents," returned Smith.
"I don't care," said Tom, "clergyman or no clergyman, while we are talking your money is on the gambler's green cloth, and not a stiver of it will you ever see again. Mind you, for only half an hour. Besides being a rascal the man is a fool. Anybody but a preacher would have made a better story than that."
Smith grew uneasy. He was of a nervous sanguine temperament, not easily excited in his suspicions, being the soul of integrity himself; but once aroused nothing stayed him. There appeared to him now much truth in what the cashier said; indeed there was no other way of accounting for the reverend borrower's behavior. Smith fidgeted, walked from the desk a short distance and hastily returned, swore a few gentle oaths, and finally seized his hat and started off at a brisk pace turning up Kearny street.
Almost to the plaza he walked, then back to California street, where turning he repeated his steps first taken. He had not proceeded far on this second tack
