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176 The banker nodded.

"He wants it—bad."

"He'll get it, then."

"He always has."

"And Foraker's Folly is going to hold the bag?"

"Oh, I don't think he could work that, but maybe he'll make Helen trouble. Humphrey thinks so. He's feeling the supervisors out, I'm told."

The doctor's mouth shut grimly.

"Yes, Hump is getting busy. Bless his old hide"

"Well, most everybody has trouble," he remarked. "Wish everybody had as easy a way out as you have, Ezam. Night. Have another voter for Pontiac Power by morning, I expect."

The door closed. Ezam went slowly back to his desk and sat there, stiff and prim on the chair, but his eyes dreamed.

And across the way in his rooms above the office of the Banner, Humphrey Bryant rocked in a chair that lurched sideways each time he swayed forward. His shoes were off, spectacles pushed back on his head. The windows were open and he sat alone, looking out to where the lights of the Commercial House and the unusual gleam from the bank windows threw beams across the white dust of the street.

On the opposite side of the window was another chair, which he had drawn from its accustomed corner before he sat down; a wooden rocker, stuffed with calico pillows and draped with the same limp material. It had been in that corner ever since the old man had begun living alone, when Maggie Bryant gave up and was taken out to the