Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout: Chapter 17: A RUN ON THE BANK

Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout: Chapter 17: A RUN ON THE BANK
Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout: Chapter 17: A RUN ON THE BANK

Other Chapters: Chapters1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25
CHAPTER XVII

A RUN ON THE BANK


"Why, Mr. Pendergast!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, rising quickly as Tom
ushered in the aged president. "Whatever is the matter? You here at
this hour? Bless my trial balance! Is anything wrong?

"I'm afraid there is," answered the bank head. "I have just received
word which made it necessary for me to see you both at once. I'm glad
you're here, Mr. Damon."

He sank wearily into a chair which Tom placed for him, and Mr. Swift
asked:

"Have you been able to raise any cash, Mr. Pendergast?"

"No, I am sorry to say I have not, but I did not come here to tell you
that. I have bad news for you. As soon as we open our doors in the
morning, there will be a run on the bank."

"A run on the bank?" repeated Mr. Swift.

"The moment we begin business in the morning," went on Mr. Pendergast.

"Bless my soul, then don't begin business!" cried Mr. Damon.

"We must," insisted Mr. Pendergast. "To keep the doors closed would be
a confession at once that we have failed. No, it is better to open
them, and stand the run as long as we can. When we have exhausted our
cash--" he paused.

"Well?" asked Mr. Damon.

"Then we'll fail--that's all."

"But we mustn't let the bank fail!" cried Mr. Swift. "I am willing to
put some of my personal fortune into the bank capital in order to save
it. So is my son here."

"That's right," chimed in Tom heartily. "All I've got. I'm not going to
let Andy Foger get ahead of us; nor his father either."

"I'll help to the limit of my ability," added Mr. Damon.

"I appreciate all that," continued the president. "But the unfortunate
part of it is that we need cash. You gentlemen, like myself, probably,
have your money tied up in stocks and bonds. It is hard to get cash
quickly, and we must have cash as soon as we open in the morning, to
pay the depositors who will come flocking to the doors. We must prepare
for a run on the bank."

"How do you know there will be a run?" asked the young inventor.

"I received word this evening, just before I came here," replied Mr.
Pendergast. "A poor widow, who has a small amount in the bank, called
on me and said she had been advised to withdraw all her cash. She said
she preferred to see me about it first, as she did not like to lose her
interest. She said a number of her acquaintances, some of whom are
quite heavy depositors, had also been warned that the bank was unsound,
and that they ought to take out their savings and deposits at once."

"Did she say who had thus warned her?" inquired Mr. Swift.

"She did," was the reply, "and that shows me that there is a conspiracy
on foot to ruin our bank. She 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
out.

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.

"What's the matter?" asked Tom, of one of the few police officers of
which Shopton boasted, though the lad did not need to be told.

"Run on the bank," was the brief answer. "It's failed."

Tom felt a pang of disappointment. Somehow, he had hoped that his
father and his friends might have been able to stave off ruin. As he
approached nearer Tom was made aware that the crowd was in an ugly mood.

"Why don't they open the doors and give us our money?" cried one
excited woman. "It's ours! I worked hard for mine, an' now they want to
keep it from us. I wish I'd put it in the new bank."

"Yes, that's the best place," added another. "That Mr. Foger has lots
of money."

"I can see the hand of Andy's father, and that of Mr. Berg, at work
here," thought Tom, "They have spread rumors of the bank's trouble, and
hope to profit by it. I wish I could find a way to beat them at their
own game."

As the minutes passed, and the bank was not opened, the ugly temper of
the crowd increased. The few police could do nothing with the mob, and
several, bolder than the rest, advocated battering down the doors. Some
went up the steps and began to pound on the portals. Tom looked for a
sight of his father or Mr. Damon, but could not see either.

It was not the regular hour for opening the bank, but when the police
reminded the people of this they only laughed.

"I guess they ain't going to open anyhow!" shouted a man.  "They've got
our money, and they're going to keep it. What difference is an hour,
anyway?"

"Yes, if they have the money, why don't they open, and not wait until
ten o'clock?" cried another. "I've got a hundred and five dollars in
there, and I want it!"

More excited persons were arriving every minute. The crowd surged this
way, and that. Many looked anxiously at the clock in the tower of the
town hall. The gilded hands pointed to a few minutes of ten. Would the
bank open its doors when the hour boomed out? Many were anxiously
asking this question.

Tom sat in his electric car, near the front of the bank. The interest
of the crowd, which under ordinary circumstances would have been
centered in the queer vehicle, was not drawn toward it.  The people
were all thinking of their money.

Suddenly one of the two doors of the bank slowly opened. There was a
yell from the crowd, and a rush to get in. But the police managed to
hold the leaders back, and then Tom saw that it was Ned Newton, who
stood in the partly-opened portal. He held up his hand to indicate
silence, and a hush fell over the mob.

"The bank is open for business," Ned announced, "but there must be no
rush. The building is not large enough to accommodate you all. If you
form a line, you will be admitted in turn. The bank hopes to pay you
all."

"Hopes!" cried a woman scornfully. "We can't eat hopes, young man, nor
yet pay the rent with it. Hopes indeed!"

But Ned had said all he cared to, and, with rather a white face, he
went back inside. The one door remained open and, with a policeman on
either side, a line of anxious depositors was slowly formed. Tom
watched them crowding and surging forward, all eager to be first to get
their cash out, lest there be not enough for all. As he watched, the
young inventor was aware that some was signaling to him from the big
window of the bank. He looked more closely and saw Ned Newton beckoning
to him, and the young cashier was motioning Tom to go around to the
rear, where a door of the bank opened on a small alley. Wondering what
was wanted, Tom slowly ran his machine down the side street, and up the
alley. No one paid any attention to him.

A porter admitted the lad, and he made his way to the private offices,
where he knew his father and Mr. Damon would be. In the corridors he
could hear the murmur of the throng and the chink of money, as the
tellers paid it out.

"Well, Tom, this is bad business," remarked Mr. Swift, as he saw his
son. The lad noticed that Mr. Damon was in the telephone booth.

"Yes, Dad," admitted Tom. "It's a run, all right. What are you going to
do?"

"The best we can. Pay out all the cash we have, and hope that before
that time, the people will come to their senses. The bank is all right
if they would only wait. But I'm afraid they won't and, after we pay
out all the cash we have, we'll have to close the doors. Then there's
sure to be an unpleasant scene, and maybe some of the more hot-headed
ones will advocate violence. We have given orders to the tellers to pay
out as slowly as possible, so as to enable us to gain some time."

"And all you need is money; is that it, Dad?"

"That's it, Tom, but we have exhausted every possibility. Mr. Damon is
trying a forlorn hope now, but, even if he is successful--"

Before Mr. Swift had ceased speaking, Mr. Damon fairly burst from the
telephone booth. He was much excited.

"I've got it! I've got it!" he cried.

"What?" asked Mr. Swift and Tom in the same breath.

"The cash, or, what's just as good, the promise of it. I called up Mr.
Chase, of the Clayton National Bank, and he has agreed to take the
railroad securities I offered him as collateral, and let me have sixty
thousand dollars on them! That will give us cash enough to weather the
storm. Hurrah! We're all right now. Bless my check book!"

"The Clayton National Bank," remarked Mr. Swift, and his voice was
hopeless. "It's forty miles away, Mr. Damon, and no railroad around
here runs anywhere near it. No one could get there and back with the
cash to-day, in time to save us from ruin. It's impossible! Our last
chance is gone."

"How far did you say it was, Dad?" asked Tom quickly.

"Forty miles there, over forty, I guess, and not very good roads. We
would need to have the cash here before three o'clock to be of any
service to us. No, it's out of the question. The bank will have to
fail!"

"No!" cried the young inventor, and his voice rang out through the
room. "I'll get the cash for you!"

"How?" gasped Mr. Damon. "You can't get there and back in time?"

"Yes, I can!" cried Tom. "In my electric runabout! I can make it go a
hundred miles an hour, if necessary! Probably I'll have to run slow
over the bad roads; but I can do it! I know I can.  I'll get the sixty
thousand dollars for you!"

For a moment there was silence. Then Mr. Damon cried:

"Good! And I'll go with you and deliver the securities to Mr. Chase.
Come on, Tom Swift! Bless my collar button, but maybe we can yet save
the old bank after all!"