Mr. Leffingwell was at this period of his life forty-eight, but the habit he had acquired of assuming responsibilities and burdens seemed to have had the effect of making his age indefinite.  He was six feet tall, broad-shouldered, his mustache and hair already turning; his eyebrows were a trifle bushy, and his eyes reminded men of one eternal and highly prized quality—­honesty.  They were blue grey.  Ordinarily they shed a light which sent people away from his window the happier without knowing why; but they had been known, on rare occasions, to flash on dishonesty and fraud like the lightnings of the Lord.  Mr. Isham, the president of the bank, coined a phrase about him.  He said that Thomas Leffingwell was constitutionally honest.

Although he had not risen above the position of paying teller, Thomas Leffingwell had a unique place in the city of his birth; and the esteem in which he was held by capitalists and clerks proves that character counts for something.  On his father’s failure and death he had entered the Prairie Bank, at eighteen, and never left it.  If he had owned it, he could not have been treated by the customers with more respect.  The city, save for a few notable exceptions, like Mr. Isham, called him Mr. Leffingwell, but behind his back often spoke of him as Tom.

On the particular hot morning in question, as he stood in his seersucker coat reading the unquestionably pompous letter of Mr. Allison announcing that his niece was on the high seas, he returned the greetings of his friends with his usual kindness and cheer.  In an adjoining compartment a long-legged boy of fourteen was busily stamping letters.

“Peter,” said Mr. Leffingwell, “go ask Mr. Isham if I may see him.”

It is advisable to remember the boy’s name.  It was Peter Erwin, and he was a favourite in the bank, where he had been introduced by Mr. Leffingwell himself.  He was an orphan and lived with his grandmother, an impoverished old lady with good blood in her veins who boarded in Graham’s Row, on Olive Street.  Suffice it to add, at this time, that he worshipped Mr. Leffingwell, and that he was back in a twinkling with the information that Mr. Isham was awaiting him.

The president was seated at his desk.  In spite of the thermometer he gave no appearance of discomfort in his frock-coat.  He had scant, sandy-grey whiskers, a tightly closed and smooth-shaven upper lip, a nose with-a decided ridge, and rather small but penetrating eyes in which the blue pigment had been used sparingly.  His habitual mode of speech was both brief and sharp, but people remarked that he modified it a little for Tom Leffingwell.

“Come in, Tom,” he said.  “Anything the matter?”

“Mr. Isham, I want a week off, to go to New York.”

The request, from Tom Leffingwell, took Mr. Isham’s breath.  One of the bank president’s characteristics was an extreme interest in the private affairs of those who came within his zone of influence and especially when these affairs evinced any irregularity.