Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“A penny?”

“That’s what did it—one little penny. That’s why I didn’t go ’way from here and all, like I intended.”

“Tell me about it, man!” exclaimed his companion. He looked at his watch impatiently. “I’d like to hear the story.”

Hemmick sat for a moment, distorting his mouth around the cigar.

“Well, to begin with,” he said, at length, “I’m going to ask you if you remember a thing that happened here about twenty-five years ago. A fellow named Hoyt, the cashier of the Cotton National Bank, disappeared one night with about thirty thousand dollars in cash. Say, man, they didn’t talk about anything else down here at the time. The whole town was shaken up about it, and I reckin’ you can imagine the disturbance it caused down at all the banks and especially at the Cotton National.”

“I remember.”

“Well, they caught him, and they got most of the money back, and by and by the excitement died down, except in the bank where the thing had happened. Down there it seemed as if they’d never get used to it. Mr. Deems, the First Vice President, who’d always been pretty kind and decent, got to be a changed man. He was suspicious of the clerks, the tellers, the janitor, the watchman, most of the officers, and yes, by Golly, I guess he got so he kept an eye on the President himself.