Mr. Wildridge of the Bank (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER X THE following morning, as soon as the books had been brought out and the usual comminatory service subsequent to the reading of the Head Office Letter duly performed, the manager reopened the subject of the previous night's discussion with his cashier, judiciously suppressing any reference to the practise of the ancient Germans. "I have been turning over in my mind, Mr. Jackson," said he, "the information you brought me last night, and I'm inclined to regard it with as much suspicion as you do yourself." Mr. Jackson, who had a considerable leaning towards belief in Terry's story, was seduced by the manager's diplomatic ending into declaring that he thought the whole story a pack of lies. "In the meantime," said the manager, " we'll act as if it was, anyhow." "But don't you think there might be something in it, sir," went on the cashier, recovering his own standpoint a little. "It came through the other Bank, and they must have believed it. And I think there has been some kind of a foreigner over inquiring about Mr. Normanby. There must be something in it, sir. There's no smoks without fire." "You'd have said that if you'd seen my dining-room ceiling this morning," said the manager. "I thought I asked you to turn down the lamp when we were leaving the room. But no matter," went on the manager, waving down Mr. Jackson's incipient protest, " we'll say nothing about it. You were a bit flustered last night, 72 weren't you? Maybe I pressed you a little too hard about a certain young lady. But really, Mr. Jackson, I think that there is the only reliable source of information. It would be difficult and indiscreet to question her father; but his daughter is sure to know all about the fortune, if there is a fortune. She runs the house, and, as far as I ca...