ARTHUR.T Stories ----A Study in Finance ----VI---Page 32

two doors, one with a combination lock and the other with a time lock.
It was as safe as human ingenuity could make it. By day it had only a
steel-wire gate which could be opened with a key. No attendant was
stationed at the door. If John wanted to get in, all he had to do was to
ask the person who had the key to open it. The reason John had the
combination to these different boxes was in order to save the loan clerk
the trouble of going downstairs to get the collateral himself.

Next day when John went out to lunch he put two bonds belonging to a
customer in his pocket. He did not intend to steal them or even to
borrow them. It was done almost automatically. His will seemed
subjugated to the idea that they were to all intents and purposes _his_
bonds to do as he liked with. He wanted the feeling of
bonds-in-his-pocket. As he walked along the street to the restaurant, it
seemed quite natural that they should be there. They were nearly as safe
with him as lying around loose in the cage or chucked into a box in the
vault. Prescott joined him, full of his new idea that cotton was going
to jump overnight.

"If you only had a couple of bonds," he sighed.

Then somehow John's legs and arms grew weak. He seemed to disintegrate internally. He tried to pull himself together, but he had lost control
of his muscles. He became a dual personality. His own John heard
Prescott's John say quite naturally:

"I can let you have two bonds, but mind we get them back to-morrow, or anyhow the day after."

John's John felt the other John slip the two American Navigation 4s under the table and Prescott's fingers close upon them. Then came a period of hypnotic paralysis. The flywheel of his will-power hung on a dead centre. Almost instantly he became himself again.

"Give 'em back," he whispered hoarsely. "I didn't mean you should keep them," and he reached anxiously across the table. But Prescott was on his feet, half-way toward the door.

"Don't be a fool, Smith," he laughed. "What's the matter with you? It's
a cinch. Go back and forget it." He shot out of the door and down the
street.

John followed, dazed and trembling with horror at what he had done. He
went back to the cage and remained the rest of the day in terror lest
the broker who owned the two bonds should pay off his loan. But at the
same time he had quickly made up his mind what he should do in that
event. There was more than one loan secured by American Navigation 4s.
He loosened a couple in one of the other piles. If the first broker came

in he would take two bonds from one of these. But the broker did not come in.

That night John wandered the streets till nearly daylight. He saw

himself arrested, ruined, in prison. Utterly fagged next morning, he

called up Prescott on the telephone and begged him to return the bonds. Prescott laughed at his fears and assured him that everything was all
right. Cotton was sure to go up. An hour later the broker who owned the bonds came in and took up his loan, and John removed two American Navigation 4s from another bundle and handed them to the loan clerk. Of course, the numbers on the bonds were not the same, but few persons would notice a little thing like that, even if they kept a record of it.
They had the bonds--that was the main thing.

Once more John rushed to the 'phone, told Prescott what had occurred and besought him for the bonds.

"It's too late now," growled Prescott. "Cotton has gone down. I could only get one back at the most. We had better stand pat and get out on the next bulge."

John was by this time almost hysterical. The perspiration broke out on
his forehead every now and then, and he shuddered as he counted his securities and entered up his figures. If cotton should go down some
more! That was the hideous possibility. They would have to put up more margin, and then--!

Down in the vault where the depositors' bonds were kept were two piles

of Overland 4s. One contained about two hundred and the other nearly six hundred bonds. The par value of these negotiable securities alone was nearly eight hundred thousand dollars. Twice a year John cut the coupons off of them. Each pile was marked with the owner's name. They were never called for, and it appeared that these customers intended to keep them there permanently. John, realizing that the chances of detection were
smaller, removed two bonds from the pile of two hundred Overlands and substituted them with Prescott for the two Navigation 4s.

Then cotton went down with a slump. Prescott did not wait even to

telephone. He came himself to the trust company and told John that they
needed two more bonds for additional margin to protect their loan. But
he said it was merely temporary, and that they had better even up by
buying some more cotton. John went down into the vault and came back
with four more Overland 4s bonds under his coat. He was in for it now
and might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. He was beginning to
get used to the idea of being a thief. He was, to be sure, wretchedly
unhappy, but he was experiencing the excitement of trying to dodge Fate
until Fortune looked his way. Cotton still went down. It never occurred
to him that Prescott perhaps had not bought all the cotton. Now that he

is in prison he thinks maybe Prescott didn't. But he kept going down

into the vault and bringing up more bonds, and, getting reckless, bought more cotton--quantities of it. In a month sixty bonds were gone from the pile of two hundred. John, a nervous wreck, almost laughed, grimly, at the joke of _his_ being short sixty bonds!

At home they thought he was getting run down. His wife--! He was so

kind and thoughtful that she had never been so happy. It made her

fearful that he had some fatal disease and knew he was going to die. Up at the bank John made a separate bundle of sixty bonds out of the pile of six hundred so that he could substitute them for those first taken if the owner called for them. It was not likely that both owners would call for their bonds on the same day, so that he was practically safe until one or the other had withdrawn his deposit.

About this time the special accountants came around to make their annual
investigation. It was apparently done in the regular and usual way. One
examiner stood inside the vault and another outside, surrounded by four
or five assistants. They "investigated" the loans. John brought them out
in armfuls and the accountants checked them off and sent them back. When
John brought out the one hundred and forty bonds left in the bundle of
two hundred Overland 4s he placed on top of them the pile of sixty bonds
taken from the other bundle of six hundred. Then he took them back,
shifted over the sixty and brought out the bundle of six hundred
Overland 4s made up in part of the same bonds. It was the easiest thing
going. The experts simply counted the sixty bonds twice--and John had
the sixty bonds (or Prescott had them) down the street. Later the same
firm of "experts" certified to the presence of three hundred thousand
dollars of missing bonds, counting the _same_ bundle, not only twice,
but five and six times! You see, Prescott's John had grown wise in his
generation.

After that he felt reasonably secure. It did seem almost unbelievable
that such a situation could exist, but it was, nevertheless, a fact that
it did. He expected momentarily that his theft would be detected and
that he would be thrown into prison, and the fear of the actual arrest,
the moment of public ignominy, the shock and agony of his wife and
family, were what drove him sleepless into the streets, and every

evening to the theatres to try to forget what must inevitably come; but
the fact that he had "gone wrong," that he was a thief, that he had
betrayed his trust, had lost its edge. He now thought no more of shoving
a package of bonds into his overcoat pocket than he did of taking that
garment down from its peg behind the door. He knew from inquiry that men
who stole a few hundred dollars, and were caught, usually got as long a
term as those who stole thousands. If he stole one bond he was just as
likely to get ten years in State's prison as if he stole fifty--so he
stole fifty, and when they were wiped out he stole fifty more--and,
well, if the reader is interested he will learn before the end of the

story just what John _did_ steal.