By day it had only a
steel-wire gate which could be opened with a key. No attendant was
stationed at the door. If John wanted to get in, all he had to do was to
ask the person who had the key to open it. The reason John had the
combination to these different boxes was in order to save the loan clerk
the trouble of going downstairs to get the collateral himself.
Next day when John went out to lunch he put two bonds belonging to a
customer in his pocket. He did not intend to steal them or even to
borrow them. It was done almost automatically. His will seemed
subjugated to the idea that they were to all intents and purposes _his_
bonds to do as he liked with. He wanted the feeling of
bonds-in-his-pocket. As he walked along the street to the restaurant, it
seemed quite natural that they should be there. They were nearly as safe
with him as lying around loose in the cage or chucked into a box in the
vault. Prescott joined him, full of his new idea that cotton was going
to jump overnight.
"If you only had a couple of bonds," he sighed.
Then somehow John's legs and arms grew weak. He seemed to disintegrate
internally.
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