Peter

the gullies and grooves, with here and there a sturdy knot sticking up like a nut on a boiler, marking the track of countless impatient depositors and countless anxious borrowers, it may be, who had lock-stepped one behind the other for fifty years or more, in their journey from the outer door to the windows where the Peters of the old days, and the Peter of the present, presided over the funds entrusted to their care.

Well enough in its day, you might have said, with a shrug, as you looked over its forlorn interior. Well enough in its day! Why, man, old John Astor, James Beekman, Rhinelander Stewart, Moses Grinnell, and a lot of just such worthies--men whose word was as good as their notes--and whose notes were often better than the Government's, presided over its destinies. and helped to stuff the old-fashioned vault with wads of gilt-edged securities--millions in value if you did but know it--and making it what it is to-day. If you don't believe the first part of my statement, you've only to fumble amo