LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1729, 4 September 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THH SCOTTISH BANKER'S DILEMMA

[From " Chambers' Journal."] (Concluded.) Mr Duff became a changed man He was thin and worn and ill with anxiety and watching. They were all watching. Traill was watching Hamilton ; Hamilton turned a keen glance on the boys ; the boys kept their eyes vtry widely open all round. Mr Doff was unwilling to put the matter in the hands of the locai polioo, knowing that the first to be suspeoted would be his clerks, and *hat the affair would speedily become town gossip, Secretly Mr .Duff began to think the place was bewitched. His partner, George Traill, being called upon to pay up half of the five hundred pounds, resolved to get to the bottom of the matter. He had a bed fitted up in the banker's business room, and determined to spend his nights there until some solution of the problem presented itself. His transfer from the Aberdeen branch reemed just then to prove a bad bargain, The keys of the safe, It should be mentioned, numbering eight, were placed every night after the locking up of the safe and the dropping of the iron bolt from the banker's bedroom, in a strong-box, the key of which was always carried by Mr Duff. George Traill, armed with a revolver, in spite of Mary's protests and Mr Duff's jeers, oocnpied the room when the bed had been fitted there, and waited philosophically the course of events. He slept little for the first night or two ; but no intruder came to disturb his repose The long dull hours crept on without adventure or other reßult than to make Traill sleepy and cross during the following days. The bankers were beginning to despair of discovering the [thief. Yet Traill—despite Mr Duff'b perfectly reasonable argument that if any man broke into the safe it would not be merely five hundred pounds that would satisfy him, nor would he likely risk a second or third visit - continued to spend his nights in the Bank. At daybreak, however, on a certain morning in the following week, Traill, who slept very lightly, was suddenly awakened and startled by hearing the bolt that passed through the lock of the outer door of the safe drawn sharply up. He conld hardly believe the evidence of his ears, thinking that perhaps he had dreamed. But the «click' was still reverberating, exaggerated as all sounds are in the stillness of the nieht. If the bolt was really lifted, the person that drew it up must be in the room where Duff slept. Traill was a courageous man ; but in spite of himself, he trembled as he felt for and examined his revolver. When the reverberation subsided, there was a silence for a few moments as of Death, Sleep's twin brother. Then he thought he heard, far off, a door open, followed by a step on the stairs. Then a light showed at the seam under the door; presently the door opened, and a, man entered, carrying in one hand a lighted candle, in the other a bunch of keys. The revolver was firmly held in Traill's grip, and before firing, he was about to utter a cry of warning, whan ho noted that the figure paid no heed to his presence, but passed him, making straight for the safe door. In the dim light, to his astonishment, he distinguished the fixed, even rigid features of his friend and partner Mr Duff I His eyes were wide open, and he moved with his usual deliberation, but with an air of stern pre-occupation quite foreign to his working habits. Traill raw at a glance that the banker wa3 walking in his sleep. His first impulse was to seize him and wake him ; but a moment's reflection decided him to wait the natural iesue of events. Mr Duff, without hesitation or fumbling, chose the right keys for the outer door, and pushed it, as the lock sprang back, slowly open ; then the wicket-gate, the inner iron door, and so on, until he disappeared silently iu the vault-like shades of the strong room. When he reached the inner safe, he took from the well-packed store of pound notes — Traill eagerly watching him from the door —a bundle containing five hundred ;he then noiselessly shut and locked each door as he retreated. He passed within aim's length of Traill, bearing the bundle of notes, the keys, and his lighted candle ; left the office —fo'lowed by his partner—walked slowly up stairs to his bedroom, where he deliberately dropped the bolt back in its place, and finally laid the keys carefully, apparently oounting them, iu their usual place in the box fixed in the wall for the purpose. Traill expected he would then retire to bed ; but it was evident that the somnambulist bad not finished his night's work. Havinc safely put away the keys, he lifted his candle and again went down stairs, carrying the notes in his hand. Traill followed him through the kitchen and out into the courtyard bohind. With tho same purposrc-like deliberation that he had shown at the safe, he now marched to—the unvarnished truth, O romantic reader, must be recordad—to the Pig-sty! Arrived there, he lifted a loose fold of thatch that rested on a slab of stone in the rickety roof, secreted the bundle of notes there, replaced the thatch oarefully, and then turned with an air of relief and went indoors:

Traill did not disturb him, did not even take the trouble to follow his partner to see if he reached his bed safely, but sprang eagerly to the loose thatch, in which, snugly lying, he found the comfortable sum of one thousand nine hundred pounds in Bank notes I He could not help laughing as he stood there in the dim grey morning, hardly half-clad, for the pursuit had not been without excitement. ' An expensive roofing for Duff's pigs,' he murmured, gathering tho various dnsty bundles together and retreating Indoors from the cold morning air. ' I think, Duff,' said Traill serionsly when they met in the office after breakfast, ' I think, to make certain that no thief, or witob, or ghost has been tampering with the

cash during the night, we had better count tho cash henceforth in the morning as well as at night ; that will make certain -whether the money disappears by night or during the day.' Mr Duff aesented.

' Suppose you begin this morning.' Again Mr Duff assented ; and with reluotant' fingers, at his partner's suggestion. counted the money. ' Powers of Darkness 1' he exclaimed, ' I shall not stay another day in this house. The cash is again five hundred pounds short!" Had Mr Duff not been a remarkably bald man, he would hare probably torn his hair in agony. 'How much do you reckon your pigs coßt you annually, Duff ?' Traill asked with apparent irrelevance and, as Mr Duff thought, flippancy. * Pigs! Hang the pigs 1 Hang the Bank ! and Yes, I mean to resign my office, I'm not going to remain here to be robbed and ruined."

' I see you are putting a new roof on your sty, and papering it,' Traill went on sententiously. * Spiring no expense on it. Doing the thing stylishly, eh V ' Are you mad, Traill?' ' Well, let me see. At the rate of' two thousand pounds, say in three months, that pig sty will coßt you and mo just about eight thousand pounds a year.' Traill was apparently in his graveßt mood. ' That's pretty moderate, eh V

' Poor Traill! The loss of his money has taken his brain. What demon has entered this house ?' "sighed Mr Duff, in the presence of a despair more tragio even than his own.

'Look herf, old fellow !' said Traill, suddenly bursting into laughter—'look here I I found these in tho roof of your pig sty this morning ; and what is more, I saw you put them there with your own hands.' ' Prodigious 1' Yes, all the missing money was there. The banker gave a champagne dinner to his delighted clerks on the evening of that day. His own health, however, was in rather a bad way. In a month or two he resigned his office, retiring on a liberal pension to his farm ; and in order to compensate James Hamilton for his recent trouble and misery, Mr Duff requested, as a personal and final favor, that the directors might appoint him to the position of assistant-agent with George Traill, a proposal which the directors favourably entertained. These offices both of the gentlemen hold with honor to this day. It may be mentioned too that George Traill and James Hamilton are now brother s-in-law, each having in due time wedded one of Mr Duffs daughters. The Bank is James Hamilton's home, while George Traill has rented a farm adjoining Mr Duff's. The fresh country air, anl exercise, and fishing, and unlimited golfing—all enforced on him by the doctor as the best medicine—have put an end to the old banker's somnambulistic rambles.