Читать книгу A Canadian Bankclerk - J. P. Buschlen - Страница 14

While Evan and Julia ate their candy and put their digestive organs out of tune, Frankie Arling sat reading stray poems from her French reader. She repeated to herself, in the little nook she called her study, a verse of De Musset's:

"J'ai perdu ma force et ma vie,

Et mes amis et ma gaieté;

J'ai perdu jusqu'à, la fierté

Qui faisait croire à mon genie."

That was about how she felt. She had cried considerably when Our Banker first went away. Now she did not yield to the temptation of tears, but she was miserably lonesome and sad—the more so since his letters grew less and less frequent and less intimate.

Frankie was a girl of seventeen and as romantic as those young creatures are made. She had always been Evan's "school girl," and he had always been her juvenile hero. Perhaps theirs was the commonest form of love-affair, but the character of the affection could never rightly be called "common." Incompatibility makes affection commonplace and mean, but Frankie and Evan were suited to each other. They both knew they were, and that knowledge made them feel sure of the ideals they cherished.

Because she clung to her ideals so tenaciously Frankie was often very wretched; she was so on the night of Evan's visit to the Waterseas with the box of candy. Not that she knew about it—but she began to doubt the impossibility of such happenings. His letters had gradually fed a suspicion in her mind.

An idea occurred to Frankie. She would call up Mr. Dunlap, the Hometon teller, and invite him up to spend the evening; then she would question him concerning the fickleness of bankclerks.

Dunlap answered her telephone call with the words: "Well, Miss Arling, I'm working to-night—but I'll gladly postpone work for you." He accepted the invitation with alacrity and seemed quite pleased with the verandah welcome he received. Mrs. Arling was out, and he could not occupy the parlor alone with the daughter; but still he had reason to be thankful.

"How is Evan getting along?" was one of the first questions the bankclerk asked.

"Very well, I think," answered Frankie; then, settling immediately to business: "Tell me, Mr. Dunlap, is bank work very exciting?"

"Oh, I don't know. There are some things about it that keep up your spirits. Not so much the bank work itself as the associations."

"What do you mean by 'associations'?"

"Well—when a fellow gets moved, for instance, he meets new—"

"Girls?" suggested Frankie, smiling faintly.

"Yes—like you."

Miss Arling did not recognize the attempt at gallantry.

"I suppose you have been moved pretty often, haven't you, Mr. Dunlap?"

"Six times in four years."

"Have you a girl in every place where you lived?"

"Not exactly," he laughed. "Of course, I write an odd letter to somebody in every one of those towns."

The school-girl had found out what she wanted to know. If Dunlap had come to visit her with any idea that she had forgotten her school-"fellow," Nelson, he could not have cherished the illusion long, for she seemed to lose interest in everything, all very suddenly, and when he suggested that he probably ought to go back and balance the ledger-keeper's books she encouraged him in so generous an undertaking. A man with six girls knows when he is wanted.

Frankie went in to her piano and played "Sleep and Forget." That was a strange selection for a young school-girl to choose; but young girls are born dramatists. Darkness had fallen and the stars were beginning to peep. She was on the verandah again, looking at the evening sky, wondering why people left home and loved ones for the other things, wealth, fame, pleasure, change. The night had sadness in its countenance—which it reflected to the girl's. She was quite like a summer's evening. She should have been, perhaps, more like a summer morning.

While the Hometon girl stood on her father's verandah, gazing and philosophizing, Evan stood on the Watersea verandah at Mt. Alban, gazing also, but not reflecting. He was looking into the eyes of Julia, rather steadily for a lad of less than eighteen, and talking.

"Mighty good of you to take in a stranger like me," he was saying.

"My dear boy" (Julia was past nineteen), "we just love to have your company. Come any time you can."

He had a sudden impulse to take her hand, but she seemed to detect it, and subdued him with a powerful smile.

"Miss Wat—"

"Call me 'Julia,' won't you?"

"All right, I will." (But he didn't.) "I think you are a good sport."

"Oh, Mr.—"

"Call me 'Evan,' will you?"

"What a nice name," she smiled; "it's odd. All right, Evan, but you mustn't call me a 'sport.'"

He had thought it was going to be considerable of a compliment.

"You know what I mean, Miss—Julia!"

"Oh, don't call me 'Miss Julia,'" she laughed; "that sounds like a maiden aunt."

He colored; his breaks were coming too thickly.

They wandered down the lawn-walk to the gate, and there Nelson bade her good-night by shaking hands. He knew she would be in the bank next day, but handshakes are always in order after nine o'clock p.m.

As he walked along Mt. Alban's quietest and prettiest street toward the bank a peculiar sense of loneliness and guilt possessed him. He suggested to himself that he only regarded Julia as a friend, and that knowing people like the Waterseas was necessary to his success as a banker. Of course he intended to pay his way along; he would always give Julia candy and take her out, in return for her kindness to him. The thought that he might be involving her in one of those attachments more easily made than broken did not enter Evan's head. He was too inexperienced to worry over such matters. Others were too experienced.

Telepathic waves reached him from Hometon. He saw Frankie's face clearly outlined inside the Little Dipper. He remembered his words to her, words containing a promise. Yes, indeed, he would be true—

But still he felt the warmth of Julia's hand. Why had he taken it in his, and why had he felt buoyant when she blushed?

He was vaguely conscious of a conflict in his heart. Yet he swore to himself that everything would be all right. Young men are usually quite sure that nothing unpleasant can come of anything.

Bill Watson was sitting in the manager's office when Evan entered. He greeted the savings man with a puff of smoke followed by no words.

"Something new for you to be in so early, Bill," said Evan.

Bill opened his mouth in the shape of a cave, and kept the white smoke revolving within it—like some sort of mysterious and legendary white fleece.

"How did she like the chocolates?" he said suddenly.

"They seemed to go all right."

Bill puffed a while.

"Shame to blow good coin like that," he said, musingly.

"Why?"

"Well, when a fellow thinks of the blots he makes earning a bean he should be gentle with it."

Nelson laughed derisively.

"You're not getting economical, are you, Bill?"

"No, but, I'm sore on myself to-night. About once a month I take a night off to repent."

Evan pinched his pal's knee-cap.

"A fellow can't be a piker, Bill," he said, with the air of a profligate young millionaire escapading in the columns of the press. "You can't go to parties and things without spending money."

Watson looked at his desk-mate.

"Evan," he said, thoughtfully, "in about two years more you'll be just where I am."

"Where's that?"

"In debt, and a spendthrift—if you can call me a spendthrift for getting away with $400 a year."

Nelson sighed. It was unusual for Watson to turn monitor. What he said was all the more effective on that account.

The Hometon boy thought of his tailor's account. He would have to be writing home for more money before long—unless he could borrow it. The very caution Bill had sounded suggested to Nelson a way out. He would borrow from a stranger. He could pay his father back the cheque, and also he could settle the tailor's bill. Just how he would settle the real debt itself was not for present consideration. It never is. It is the humanest thing in the world to borrow money.

Evan turned the light on his desk and wrote a letter to his father. It thanked the merchant for his loan, in rather a businesslike manner, and assured him he would get the money back. This was the letter of an ostensibly self-made son to his merchant father, reversing the title of a well-known story.

Another letter Evan wrote—to Frankie Arling. This one was as follows:

"Dear Frank,—It is quite a while since I wrote you. I hope you have not been accusing me of negligence. I am pretty busy, you know.

"The people up here are mighty kind to us bank-fellows. There is one family in particular that uses us white. Miss Watersea—that is the daughter—told me last night I was to come up as often as I could. They have a magnificent home. I wish I were making more money so that I could take Julia (that's her name) out more.

"How are you getting along at school? It's surprising how soon a person forgets those lessons you are now learning. Bill is calling me—I must close for this time.

"Yours, as before,

"EVAN."

If he had known the comments Frankie would make on a conspicuous sentence of one of his paragraphs, Evan would have made the letter still shorter than it was. It was natural that he should refer to Julia. One should never write a letter to anyone when someone else is on his mind, unless the third party is a mutual friend. Letters, like young children just able to talk, have a habit of telling tales. Often we say to a sheet of paper what we would scarcely tell by word of mouth to the one to whom it is addressed; and yet the letter is mailed and forgotten with the profoundest nonchalance.

The following day a long envelope came from head office to the Mt. Alban office. It contained the "increases."

Castle's salary was raised from $650 to $800. Watson got $100; Evan a raise of $50. The junior did not expect any, and he was not disappointed in his expectations. Nevertheless he was disappointed.

Mr. Robb was snubbed! He said nothing. Bill emulated the manager's stoicism—another two dollars per week made little difference to Bill; it would all have to go out in debts, anyway.

Castle "took" his increase with dignity, making no comments and voicing no rapture. Bill watched him from his ledger.

"Say, Alf," he said at last, under a growing deviltry, "you seem to be a favorite. Now I don't think you're worth eight hundred dollars a year—honestly, do you?"

The teller's delicate skin became pink.

"I don't blame you for being sore, Watson," he retorted, gingerly for him, "when head office shows discrimination; it hurts, I suppose."

Watson grinned. He rarely lost his temper. He sighed comically.

"I can't help if my name isn't Castle," he said, coolly.

The teller opened the door of his cage and rushed into the manager's room.

"Mr. Robb," he cried, in his tenor tones, "I'm not going to stand for the insults of Watson any longer."

"What's the matter now?" asked Robb, not encouragingly.

"Watson's talking of favoritism and that sort of rot. He knows I earn all I get from head office."

"That's right enough, Alf," said Robb, calmly. "You earn what you get, but you also get what you earn. The rest of us don't."

The teller was dumfounded. The way the manager spoke would have halted him even had he considered the words unjust—which he could not. But Castle's sense of dignity was too great to endure argument at that moment; he flushed with humiliation and withdrew unceremoniously from Robb's office.

Robb would not give his teller the satisfaction of calling Watson on the carpet, but when Castle had quit work for the day, the manager accosted Bill.

"Were you rubbing it into Alf to-day?" he asked, leaning against the ledger desk.

"Just a little," said Bill, smiling.

"You want to go easy, Watson. Some day Alf will be an inspector or something, and then he'll remember thee."

Bill looked up from his work quickly.

"Surely we don't have to curry the favor of a brat like that!" Then, in a moment, "His preaching against me to-day didn't seem to get him in very strong with the manager, Mr. Robb?"

Robb made a face.

"Oh, I don't pay much attention to him. Sometimes I feel sorry for him, and then again I can't help despising him. He's got bank aristocracy in him, and that makes it hard for him among us common fellows. I think I insulted him this afternoon—"

Bill interrupted with:

"Wouldn't be surprised if he squealed it to the Big Eye."

The boys called Inspector I. Castle the "Big Eye," because of his initial and of his facility for seeing things; also for other reasons.

"Oh, no," said the manager, sceptically, "I don't think he's that much of a cad."

"Well, you know, Mr. Robb, he'd soothe his poor little conscience with the thought that it is a fellow's duty to report any treason against head office. That's the policy the bank itself pursues. Why should Castle have any more honor than he is taught to have?"

Evan pretended to be busy, but he was listening.

Mr. Robb laughed.

"I'm ashamed of you, Watson," he said, and still smiling, walked away. Once inside his office, however, his face straightened and he looked steadily at a corner of the ceiling.

When Castle left the bank, about four-thirty, he walked soberly up town to the Coign Hotel and ascended to his room. It was a nice room for the teller of a town bank to occupy, boasting a wicker chair, a leather couch and a brass bed. A couple of rather pretentious pictures hung on the walls, otherwise decorated with pennants. The pennants were all Alfred knew about colleges. A desk filled one corner of the room, and there was the atmosphere of an office over all. The wonder is that Alf didn't have his bed encaged.

To his desk the nifty bankman turned his eyes. After washing his hands and adjusting his tie, he sat down to write.

Twenty-four hours after the letter he had written was mailed Inspector I. Castle received one addressed in his nephew's handwriting.

Before a week had passed Sam Robb enjoyed the privilege of reading a circular. It dealt with loyalty to the bank. One paragraph read as follows:

"We wish to warn the managers and staff against the common tendency to ridicule bank customs and establishments. Some of our employes have gone so far as to criticize head office indiscriminately in the matter of salaries, etc. We think it only fair that instances of disaffection should be reported to us, so that we may ascertain who is and who is not loyal to the bank, and reward accordingly."

The circular did not say "punish accordingly." That would not have been diplomatic.

Robb's face grew white—not with fear. All day he was silent, although it could not be said that he was irritable. He seemed uninterested in business and quiet—merely that.

Evan found him sitting moodily in his office late that evening. The savings man had been proving up his ledger. He did not greet the manager; he was going to pass on in silence when he heard his name spoken from the armchair.

"Yes, sir." He turned toward Mr. Robb.

"Are you in a hurry?" There was no sarcasm in the tone.

Evan sat down.

"No, sir; my time isn't worth much, I guess."

The manager looked at him analytically.

"You're beginning to realize it, are you?"

Nelson explained that he meant nothing by the remark, and Robb grunted discontentedly.

"I want you to see the circular we got to-day, Evan. Here, read that and tell me what you think of it."

While the young man read, the man of forty, the bachelor banker, waited. Robb was a lonesome man. He should have had a son almost as old as Evan, but he had none—and Evan would have to answer. It was somewhat comforting to have a confidant like him.

"Looks as if Castle did write, after all," said Evan, suddenly.

The manager smiled grimly.

"You've guessed it, I think," he said. "How would you like the current ledger, Evan?"

"Fine!"

It never took Evan long to decide anything when his success was at stake. He had unlimited faith in promotions and quite a strong confidence in his own powers. The clerical quirks of banking were day by day disappearing before his persistent faculties, and he was always ready to take on new work for the sake of experience.

"Well," continued the manager, "I'm going to suggest to head office that Alf is drawing too big a salary for this branch to support. It may get me in bad, but after all is said and done I'm manager here, and deserve a little say. If they move him the staff will be raised one notch all round. Watson ought to make a capital teller, and—I like him."

Before long the Mt. Alban manager wrote about the matter, without consulting his teller. The reply he got from head office read:

"Please instruct Mr. Evan Nelson to report at once to Creek Bend, Ontario. By taking on a new junior you can cut down expenses and still keep your present teller.

"(Signed) I. CASTLE."

When Bill Watson saw the inspector's instructions he cursed volubly behind his ledger and exclaimed:

"That settles it; me for a move, too."

Mr. Robb called him on the carpet.

"Watson," he said, "you have a nice job in this office. I heard you talking to Nelson a while ago about a move. Now if you shift from here it won't help your salary any, and it may involve you in a bunch of work. Besides, you have a free room here."

Bill thought a while.

"I guess that's a fact," he said finally. "I won't say anything. I guess you and I can hold the fort against Mr. Alfred Castle, eh?"

The manager laughed and extended his hand.

"Bill," he said (usually he called the ledger-keeper "Watson"), "I'm in wrong already, and if you asked to leave, head office might think there was something wrong with my management."

"I get you," said Bill, unconsciously speaking as he would to a pal. "By the way, do you suppose the Big Eye knows that Alf has a girl here?"

"Sure—likely," said Robb; "I'm now convinced that that boy chirrups to his dear uncle about everything."

After musing a bit Bill observed:

"I wish I could make him blow on me. No, I don't, either—he hasn't got the physique to stand it."

Robb chuckled. They spoke of Nelson.

"He's a good scout," said Bill. "How is it they always move the decent heads away?"

"I give them up," said the manager; "the older I grow the more head office puzzles me."

Nelson rapped at the door and was invited in. "Well," grinned the manager, "our pipe-dream didn't mature, did it?"

But Evan was having one of his own, and while he did not like to leave so kind a manager as Robb, he was thinking almost entirely of himself.

"I'll probably be teller in Creek Bend, won't I?"

"Yes," said Bill, "if there's anything to be 'told.'"

The manager laughed quietly.

"Take care you don't get lazy, Evan," he said. "They won't leave you there forever. It will be a city office for yours in due course, and then you'll need to be in practice. You'll be sure to hit a bees'-nest before you quit the bank."

"If they always use me right," said Evan, "I won't ever quit."

"Well," yawned Watson, "if you're satisfied, Nelsy, I guess they are."

Nelson waited a minute before making the request he came with the intention of making.

"Mr. Robb," he asked, "could I take a day off to run home and see the folks? Creek Bend is a hundred miles away and hard to get at—so the station agent says."

"Sure," said the manager, "but I'll have to 'fix' the head office travel-slip."

"What's that?" asked Evan.

Mr. Robb showed him a slip of paper to be signed by the manager of the branch left and the branch arrived at, also by the transient clerk. This slip records the time to a minute and allows no stop-over or visits en route. Neither does it permit of delay in leaving.

Evan suddenly decided he would not bother going home. He explained to Watson later that he considered it crooked to tamper with the travel-slip and thought he would be a cad to let the manager run the chance of further incurring head office displeasure by altering it.

"By heck," said Bill, "you've got to let some of that good conscience run out if you ever expect to stay in the bank."

"Well, Bill," was the reply, "when I find that I can't be honest in the bank I'll get out of it."

Watson remembered that remark years afterwards.

Evan wrote letters home, one to his mother and one to Frankie Arling. Then he packed his trunk and bade good-bye to Mt. Alban. Within four hours after receiving notice from head office he was on the train bound for Creek Bend.

Mrs. Nelson cried over her son's letter, and went to her husband for consolation.

"Carrie," he said, "it will do the boy good."

"But why didn't they let him say good-bye to us?" she cried.

"Well," answered George Nelson, "business is business, you know."

In his store-office the father used profanity. Men swear. He voiced a wish that all banks were made of sand and situated in the neighborhood of Newfoundland.

Frankie swallowed something in her throat as she read her letter. There was one grain of comfort in it, though, prompting the utterance:

"That ends Julia!"