SIX weeks after Martin Embree’s triumphant election to the governorship, the owner of The Guardian visited the Fenchester Trust Company for the formality of renewing his note. He was referred to President Robert Wanser. More walrus-like than ever, the president of the institution looked this morning as if he might have eaten a fish that did n’t quite agree with him. Jeremy stated his errand. Mr. Wanser ruminated.

“Difficulties have arisen,” he presently announced. “What difficulties?” asked Jeremy, startled.

“The Trust Company does not see its way to renewing your note at this time, Mr. Robson.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I have not said that anything is wrong. It is merely a matter of business policy. The loan is a heavy one.”

“It is well secured.”

“I do not question that.”

“The paper has turned the corner. We are making money to-day.”

“To-day—you are.”

“And we shall make more from now on.”

“A(c)h!” observed the banker with his buried guttural. “That is prophecy.”

“Based on facts and figures. I can show them to you.”

“No need.”

Jeremy reflected, with an unpleasant sensation of being spied upon, that probably the local banks knew as much of the financial side of his business as he himself did; perhaps more.

“Do you consider The Guardian weaker security than it was?” he inquired.

“I have not said so,” replied the impassive walrus.

“You have n’t said anything. Do you intend to, or am I wasting my time?”

Jeremy arose, looking at the financier with a lively eye. This was not at all what Wanser desired. He intended to read this young sprig of journalism an impressive and costly lesson, after first reducing him to a condition of affliction suitable for the punitive exercise. It annoyed him to find that Jeremy did not reduce; on the contrary, that he was likely to escape uninstructed in that discipline to which he, Wanser, was leading by gradual stages. Forced to a shorter cut he said oracularly:

“A newspaper’s best asset is its friends.”

The editor’s regard continued intent.

“Its heaviest liability is enemies.”

Still no response from the beneficiary of these pearls of wisdom.

“A newspaper is on the down-grade when it makes unfair and prejudiced attacks upon—upon any class of people.”

“Talk plain, Mr. Wanser. You mean the Germans.”

The walrus, startled by this abruptness, began to bark. “That’s what I mean. That’s exactly what I mean. You’ve got a grudge against the Germans.”

“Not I.”

“You have. It proves itself. The Germans are the best citizens in the State.”

Jeremy laughed not quite pleasantly. “I was betting myself you’d say that next.”

“Say what? I don’t understand you.”

“Every German-American I’ve ever talked with tells me sooner or later that the German-Americans are the solidest or the best or the most representative citizens in the country. If not the most modest,” added he maliciously.

Like most retorts inspired by annoyance it was a tactless speech. The walrus bristled. “You see!” he growled. “There’s your prejudice.”

“No prejudice at all. The Germans considered as people are all very well. I like them and respect them. But there are other people in America, you know,—Americans, for instance.”

“We all know how you feel. We all know why you fought our school bill.”

“I did n’t fight it. I let up on it.”

“You let up when you were afraid to go on,” taunted the other.

Jeremy’s face flamed. “You’re a—” he began, and stopped short, swallowing hard. “You’re right,” he said with quiet bitterness. “I was a quitter. It serves me right that you should be the second man to tell me so.”

“You quit too late.” The walrus was enjoying himself now.

“Evidently. All right, Mr. Wanser. The note will be paid when due. At least I’m glad we understand each other.”

The walrus, briefly meditant upon this, did n’t like it. “Don’t be so sure you understand it all,” was his parting word, by which he really meant that he failed to understand Jeremy. There was a large leaven of timidity in his imposing bulk.

To Andrew Galpin the interview as detailed by his boss proved no great surprise. “Dutch Bob”—thus he irreverently dubbed Fenchester’s leading banker—“is sore on two counts. You mussed up his bill. That’s the first and worst. The other is our support of Mart Embree.”

“But Embree and Wanser worked for the bill together.”

“Ay-ah. That’s all right. Wanser is all for Embree when he’s a German booster. He’s all against him when he’s a radical. It’s one of the twists of politics.”

“Why are they so hot about this school business anyway? It almost makes me believe that Wymett and Laurens are right in their Deutschtum theory.”

“Don’t you go seeing ghosts, Boss,” advised the general manager, good-humoredly.

“Then you don’t take any stock in the notion.”

“About the Germans? Oh, I don’t know. Let ’em play with their little Dutch toys. I guess we’re a big enough country to absorb all the sauerkraut and Wienerwursts they can put into our system. What’s the use of being cranky about it? It only gets the paper in wrong.”

“We’re certainly in wrong with Wanser. And now we’re out. Got twenty thousand dollars up your sleeve, Andy?”

“No. I’ve spent my week’s salary,” answered the other with a grin. “The Drovers’ Bank would be my best guess.”

To the Drovers’ Bank went the owner of the Fenches-ter Guardian, a daily with a rapidly rising circulation of eleven thousand, an increasing advertising patronage, and a fair plant. He was courteously received by the president of the institution, an old, glossy, and important looking nonentity named Warrington. Mr. Warrington listened with close attention, made some thoughtful figures on a blotter, and requested Mr. Robson to return that afternoon when a positive answer would be given. But Mr. Warrington thought—he was quite of the opinion—he confidently believed—that there would be no difficulty.

“There’s one thing that worries me, Boss,” commented Andrew Galpin as the pair sat absorbing coffee and pie into their systems at a five-cent, time-saving lunch-counter near the office.

“Pass me the sugar—and the worry,” requested Jeremy.

“Why should Wanser close down just at this time?”

“Why not?”

“Well, safely secured loans of twenty thousand dollars aren’t the kind of business a bank chucks to another bank.”

“Did n’t I indicate to you that his loyal German heart was sore?”

“Why was n’t it sore last summer, when the bill was up?”

“Do you think somebody’s been stirring him up to go after us?”

“More likely he’s got some reason to think we’re up against it.”

“Hoots! We were never in such good shape.”

“That’s our view. I’m wondering if, maybe, Bausch and his lot are putting up some kind of a game.”

“What kind of a game can they be putting up?”

“I’d have to understand German to read their minds. Maybe they’ll stir up the advertisers against us. Like Stockmuller.”

“Any local advertiser that thinks he can do business without The Guardian,” stated the owner arrogantly, “is suffering from an aggravated form of fool-in-the-head.”

“That’s good doctrine. If only you can make ’em believe it.”

“They believe it all right.”

“Say, Boss. Why not get Mart Embree’s view on it?”’

“Good idea.”

Jeremy went to the Governor-elect. “What did you expect?” asked that acute commentator on men and events. “Can’t you understand that you insulted every good German-American by attacking them on the point where their pride is most involved, the superiority of their educational system?”

“Allowing that, is this just a belated revenge on Wanser’s part?”

“No. It’s business.”

“To drop $1400 a year interest on a good note?”

“It would have cost the Trust Company more than that to carry you.”

“I don’t get the point, Martin.”

“Deutscher Club account. Emil Bausch’s account. Henry Vogt. Arndt & Niebuhr. Stockmuller—Have I said enough?”

“They would have withdrawn? Are they as sore as that?”

“One of these days you’ll realize the truth of what I told you about committing hara-kiri, Jem. There’s only one safe way with the Germans. Let them alone and they’ll let you alone.”

“Oh! Will they! That shows how one-sidedly you look at it. They’ve begun flooding the office already with their press-work for the winter Singing Society festival.”

“Perfectly harmless. You certainly can’t see anything objectionable in that.”

“No; I can’t,” admitted Jeremy.

“Run a lot of it, then. It costs nothing, and it will help square you for the school bill break.”

Which Jeremy found good advice and resolved to follow. He said as much and was approved as one coming to his senses after regrettable errancy.

“How much pull do you think the Deutscher Club crowd have with the Drovers’ Bank?” asked Jeremy.

“Not so much. If you do have difficulty there, let me know. I could probably fix you up in some of the out-of-town banks.”

The Drovers’ Bank made no difficulty. Mr. Warrington was most amenable when Jeremy returned. This helped to reassure the borrower that no financial plot threatened his newspaper. He would have felt less happy had he known that the interval between his visits had been utilized by Mr. Warrington to pay a call of consultation upon a certain florid and self-important gentleman, no lover of The Guardian or its editor since he had suffered indignities of print as “President Puff” from Jeremy’s satiric and not always well-advised pen.

“Let him have it,” directed the public utilitarian. “Three months’ note.”

Montrose Clark smiled puffily upon Judge Selden Dana later at the club.

“I thought he would come around to us,” he stated. “What will you do now?” asked the lawyer.

“Wait,” replied the magnate.

Which might have been regarded either as direction, threat, or declaration of intent, and partook of the nature of all three.