Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/144

120 of the bank by the senior Howell three years after the great Chicago fire. The clerks' and tellers' cages were of the heavy, overelaborate brass scroll work of the generation before; the counters of thick, almost ponderous, mahogany, now deeply scored, but not discolored. And the massive safe, set into a rear wall, especially attracted Trant's attention. He paused before its open door and curiously inspected the complicated mechanism of revolving dials, lettered on their rims, which required to be set to a certain combination of letters in order to open it.

"This is still good enough under ordinary conditions, I dare say," he commented, as he turned the barrels experimentally; "but it is rather old, is it not?"

"It is as old as the bank and the building," Howell answered. "It is one of the Rittenhouse six-letter combination locks; and was built in, as you see, in '74 when they put up this building for us. Just about that time, I believe, the Sargent time lock was invented; but this was still new, and besides, father has always been very conservative. He lets things go on until a real need arises to change them; and in thirty-six years, as I told you at your office, nothing has happened to worry him particularly about this safe."

"I see. The combination, I suppose, is a word?"

"Yes; a word of six letters, changed every Monday."

"And given to—"

"Only to the cashier."

"Gordon, that is," Trant acknowledged, as he turned away and appeared to take his first interest in