A British naval officer in uniform, rapidly
overtaking a young woman, quite unconscious of his approach, followed
by an excited, bareheaded man with a revolver in his grasp, was a
sight which would quickly have collected a crowd almost anywhere, but
it happened to be the lunch hour, and the inhabitants of that famous
summer resort were in-doors; thus, fortunately, the street was
deserted. The naval officer was there because the hour of the midday
meal on board the cruiser did not coincide with lunch time on shore.
The girl was there because it happened to be the only portion of the
day when she could withdraw unobserved from the house in which she
lived, during banking hours, to try her little agitating financial
experiment. The cashier was there because the bank had no lunch hour,
and because he had just witnessed the most suspicious circumstance
that his constantly alert eye had ever beheld. Calm and imperturbable
as a bank cashier may appear to the outside public, he is a man under
constant strain during business hours. Each person with whom he is
unacquainted that confronts him at his post is a possible robber who
at any moment may attempt, either by violence or chicanery, to filch
the treasure he guards. The happening of any event outside the usual
routine at once arouses a cashier's distrust, and this sudden flight
of a stranger with money which did not belong to him quite justified
the perturbation of the cashier.
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