Chapter XVII. A Run on the Bank - Page 2

stated that Mr. Foger had told her our institution was unsound."

"Mr. Foger!" cried Mr. Damon. "So this is one of his tricks to bolster up his new bank! He hopes the people who withdraw their money from our bank will deposit with him. I see his game. He's a scoundrel, and if it's possible I'm going to sue him for damages after this thing is over."

"Did he warn the others?" inquired the aged inventor.

"Not all of them," answered the president. "Some received letters from a man signing himself Addison Berg, warning them that our bank, was likely to fail any day."

"Addison Berg!" exclaimed Tom. "That must have been the important business he had with Mr. Foger, the day I showed him the watch charm! They were plotting the ruin of our bank then," and he told his father about his disastrous pursuit of the submarine agent.

"Very likely Foger is working with Berg," admitted Mr. Damon. "We will attend to them later. The question is, what can we do to save the bank?"

"Get cash, and plenty of it," advised Mr. Pendergast. "Suppose we go over the whole situation again?" and they fell to talking stocks: bonds, securities, mortgages and interest, until the youth, interested as he was in the situation, could follow it no longer.

"Better go to bed, Tom," advised his father. "You can't help us any, and we have many details to go over."

The lad reluctantly consented, and he was soon dreaming that he was in his electric auto, trying to pull up a thousand pound lump of gold from the bottom of the sea. He awoke to find the bedclothes in a lump on his chest, and, removing them, fell into a deep slumber.

When the young inventor awoke the next morning, Mrs. Baggert told him that his father and Mr. Damon had risen nearly an hour before, had partaken of a hearty breakfast, and departed.

"They told me to tell you they were at the bank," said the housekeeper.

"Did Mr. Pendergast stay all night?" inquired Tom.

"I heard some one go away about two o'clock this morning," replied the housekeeper. "I don't know who it was."

"They must have had a long session," thought Tom, as he began on his bacon, eggs and coffee. "I'll take a run down to the bank in my electric in a little while."

The car was still in rather crude shape, outwardly, but the mechanism was now almost perfect. Tom charged the batteries well before starting put.

The youth had no sooner come in sight of the old Shopton bank, to distinguish it from the Second National, which Mr. Foger had started, than he was aware that something unusual had occurred. There was quite a crowd about it, and more persons were constantly arriving to swell the throng.