Читать книгу A Canadian Bankclerk - Jack Preston - Страница 6

The Ontario village of Hometon rested. It had been doing for so many years. There, in days gone by, pioneers with bushy beards—now long out-of-date, but threatening to sprout again—had fearlessly faced the wolf-haunted forests, relying, no doubt, upon the ferocity of their own appearance to frighten off the devourer.

A few old elm trees still remained in the village, to protect it from the summer sun; and still lived also an occasional pioneer, gnarled and rugged like the old elms, to sigh and shake his head at the new civilization, and shelter whom he might from the power of its stroke.

One of these ancient fathers meandered across the main street and into a grocery store. He plucked a semi-petrified prune from its sticky environment and drew a stool up to the counter.

"Well, Dad," greeted the grocer, "what's new in the old town?"

The old gentleman worried the stolen morsel into one cheek and replied:

"Our boys keep a-leavin' on us, John; keep a-goin'."

While the grocer stood wondering whether the "keep a-goin'" referred to himself or "our boys," a customer entered.

"How d'you do, Mrs. Arling," he smiled, leaving the old man to his quid-like mouthful.

But, in the case of a lady shopper, where business interferes with the telling of a story—or anything—postpone business.

"Ah yes, Grandpa Newman," she sighed, "the town will soon be deserted."

The grey-haired man looked at her as much as to ask: "Pray, how did you manage to overhear what I was saying?" What he did ask was:

"How does his mother feel, Mrs. Arling?"

"I'm just on my way there now," replied the lady-shopper; "give me a can of pork-and-beans, will you, John?"

The grocer, whom almost everyone in town called by his first name, climbed nimbly up the side of his store and fished out the desired article. Meanwhile Mrs. Arling winked at the old man and whispered:

"He looks like a boy, Grandpa, the way he scales that shelf; but he's past forty!"

"Aye, so he is, Mary; but you both seem like chits to me."

Grandpa Newman smiled when "Mary" had gone, then shook his head and sighed. The grocer proceeded to wheedle more news out of the village information bureau.

"Who's leaving us now, Dad?" he asked.

"Young Nelson; he's goin' away out here to Mt. Alban to j'in one of them banks."

"You don't say!"

"Yes," drawled the grandsire, "it beats the Old Scratch how these youngsters have got new-fangled idears into their heads. Now, when I was a boy—"

But the observation Mrs. Arling was, a few minutes later, making to Mrs. Nelson, is more to the point:

"My dear Caroline, I just dropped in to tell you how sorry and how glad I am."

Mrs. Arling was fair, round and vivacious. The woman to whom she talked was dark and slender, but also vivacious. The latter smiled.

"It is lonesome, Mary; but you know we can't keep them home forever."

"No, indeed," agreed Mrs. Arling, "that's what I tell my silly old man when he gets to worrying about our boy, who's only twelve. Let them go—they'll be glad to come back."

"It's all very well for you to sit there and act brave," laughed Mrs. Nelson, "but wait till the day arrives."

The force of the argument told on Mrs. Arling.

"Maybe you're right, Caroline," she admitted. "But it must be a great consolation to see Evan enter such a splendid business."

"That is what consoles me, Mary. Banking is such a respectable, genteel occupation!"

The dark woman's eyes were bright; she spoke with great pride.

"You're right, Caroline, it is genteel. Bank boys get into such nice society. And they can always—you know—look so nice!"

"You know, Mary," rejoined the slender woman, "his pa almost repented giving him permission to quit school. Evan was getting along so well. He would have taken both his matric. and his second this summer; but he would go in a bank, and when a vacancy occurred so near home we thought perhaps it would be as well to let him go, in case he should not get so good a chance again."

Mrs. Arling sat in thought.

"Caroline," she said at length, "do you think Evan ever cared much about our girl?"

Mrs. Nelson blushed before one who had been a school-chum.

"I was going to mention that," she said, bashfully.

"You think there is something between them, then?"

"Why, Mary, they are only children. And yet, I often wish that Evan would some day get serious."

"Wouldn't it be lovely!"

The conversation drifted, like ocean-tide, into many fissures and along innumerable channels. The May afternoon ebbed away.

"I really must be going," said Mrs. Arling, suddenly. "Let us know how he gets along. I'm sure the whole town misses Evan, and is proud of him."

Mrs. Nelson smiled fondly.

"And we, too, are proud of Our Banker."

It was the second day of "our banker's" apprenticeship. According to the chronology of homesickness he had been in the banking business about a year. He stood at a high desk in the back end of a dark office, gazing blankly on a heap of letters addressed, or to be addressed, everywhere. An open copying-book lay at his elbow, the pages of which were smeared with indelible streaks. Clerical experts had invented that book for the purpose of recording letters, but Nelson had applied too much water, and the result of his labors was chaos; worse—oblivion.

"Just gaze on that!" cried the teller-accountant, Alfred Castle.

While Alfred gazed a pencil artist might have made a good sketch of him—if the artist, of course, had been any good. The sketch, to be perfect, would need to portray a tall, slim, blonde person with feminine features. But no crayon could convey an idea of the squeaky voice and the supercilious manner.

"I can't understand how anyone could ball things up like that," he continued.

But assertions seemed incapable of rousing Evan from his stupid lethargy. A question might help.

"Why didn't you stop before you had spoiled the whole bunch?" asked the teller sharply.

Evan swallowed.

"I kept thinking," he stammered, "that each one—"

Castle turned away impatiently, refusing to hear the speaker out. He entered his cage and closed the door, leaving Evan to his nightmare. The manager strolled back through the office.

"Where's Perry?" he asked the new junior.

"Out with the drafts, sir," replied Evan, weakly.

The manager was worthy of description also. He was short, heavy of shoulders and slightly knock-kneed. He was perhaps forty years old, his hair was getting thin, and his dark eyes snapped behind a pair of glasses. Just now, instead of snapping, his eyes twinkled.

"What in thunder have you been trying to do?" he exclaimed.

As he leafed over the pages of the copying-book his mirth came nearer and nearer the surface, until at last he was laughing aloud and with much enjoyment.

"Cheer up," he said, seeing the expression of Evan's face, "we'll let them go this time without re-writing."

Then he showed the young clerk how to copy a letter without spoiling both the letter and the tissue-paper pages.

"Thank you, Mr. Robb," said Evan, earnestly.

While the dainty teller fretted in his cage, like a rare species of wild animal, the manager dug Nelson out of his mess and tried to make light of the disaster.

"We all have to learn," he said kindly.

Sam Robb might have been either a diplomat or merely a good-hearted human being. At any rate, Evan Nelson resolved, after the tone of Robb's words had penetrated, that he would always do his utmost to please the manager.

The return of Porter Perry, alias the "Bonehead," was heralded by loud scuffling over by the ledgers. A string of oaths escaped ("escaped" is hardly the way to express it) the ledger-keeper, William Watson, as Porter approached.

"You——! why didn't you get back here sooner?"

The teller raised his blonde head.

"Enough of that profanity, Watson," he said, peremptorily.

Perry, also called "the porter," dodged Watson, and, muttering a savage growl, shot across the office to the collection desk.

"Here, you," said Mr. Robb, "get busy on this mail. Where have you been—playing checkers in the library or shooting craps on the sidewalk?"

Porter still had his hat on. He took the hint when the manager said, half-mischievously, "Judging by the size of the mail, don't you think you had better stay a while?"

The remainder of the day's work meant confusion and headaches for Evan. Before going to his boarding-house for supper he took a walk by himself along one of the back streets of Mt. Alban. A song his sister used to sing seemed to dwell in the very air about him. It associated itself with home memories and sent a thrill through him.

Mt. Alban was only thirty miles from Hometon, and yet Evan felt that he was gone from home forever. So he was—if he continued to work in the bank. He knew that he would be able to get home only for an occasional week-end; nor were the Hometon trains convenient to bank hours. There was no branch of the bank in Hometon, and he would, consequently, never be located there. When the first move came it would take him still further away.

Evan sauntered, with his thoughts, past comfortable homes fronted with lawns and shaded by weeping willows. There is a peculiar melancholia about a May day; it had an effect on the young bankclerk. He walked by hedges beyond the end of Mt. Alban's asphalt out into the suburbs. Spring birds sang their thanks to Nature, and to the homesick heart a bird's singing is sadness. It is natural for such a heart to seek quiet. Evan had no desire for company. He wanted to think, all by himself. His mind travelled in the one circle, the arcs of which were home, school and the bank. Yes, and Frankie Arling!

Although only seventeen he had a tenacious way of liking a girl; and Frankie had always appealed to him. He thought of her as he walked by the hedges. It was she, indeed, who helped him, more than anything else, to forget the ordeal of his first few days' clerkship. He shuddered when he thought of the hundred and one inscrutable books in the office, so well known to the teller and Watson, and a shiver accompanied thought of mail and copying-books; but he viewed matters from a different angle when Frankie came forward in his mind. How worldly-wise he would be when he went home, and what a hit he would make with his own money in the ice-cream places of Hometon! Wouldn't Frankie be proud of him!

Exclamation marks hardly do justice to Evan's enthusiasm as he allowed himself to speculate on the future. Being "good stuff" at bottom, he forced himself, finally, on this May-day walk, to look at the sunlight on the lawns and trees; and when he doubled back to the boarding-house it was with a good imitation of his old football energy. At table he spoke blithely to the guests, and was quite gay during soup. Cold roast beef brought a slight chill with it. Cake had something of a sour flavor. He drank his tea in silence.

In the evening he declined an invitation to a party, extended to him over the telephone, at the bank. After sweeping out the office he perched himself on a stool and wrote a long letter home. Before daylight had quite disappeared he "wound" the vault combination, seriously, faithfully, and crept up the back stairs to his bed above the bank's treasure. He soberly inspected a heavy revolver, placed it on a chair beside the bed, and retired with a sound not unlike a groan.

Perry came in late and raised a dreadful hubbub. He smoked cigarettes in the room, whistled the raggiest rags and tried his best to make things uncomfortable for the new man. Nelson ground his teeth beneath the sheets and wished he had been born strong.

The first official question Evan was asked the following morning concerned the winding of the combination.

"Never forget that," enjoined Watson.

"Mr. Nelson," called the teller from his cage, "come here." Evan obeyed the summons.

"Go over to the B—— Bank and ask them for their general ledger."

"All right, sir," said Nelson, meekly, and taking his cap from a peg went out to execute the commission.

He had hardly disappeared when Watson walked to the phone and called up the B—— Bank, informing them of Nelson's mission and asking them to send him on to some other bank. It was half an hour before the junior returned; he had been all over town; the report he brought with him was this:

"I found out it had just been sent back here."

Now the general ledger of a bank contains a summary of all business done. It would not do for one bank to see the general ledger of another. Neither the branches nor the clerks of one bank may have business secrets in common with another bank; of course it is all right for head offices and general managers to get their heads together in such small matters as keeping down the rate of interest and curtailing loans—but then all competitors should unite against that great enemy, the public.

Evan was given a copy of "Rules and Regulations" to study while waiting for the "Bonehead" to get his drafts ready for delivery. He was pointed to the clause on secrecy and commanded to memorize it forthwith.

The new junior soon discovered that Porter Perry was something of a joke among Mt. Alban merchants. The "Bonehead" had sometime and somewhere earned the dignity of his title. The way he approached customers about a draft was ridiculous even to Evan—and it meant something for Evan to have a definite idea about anything these apprenticeship days. Remarks passed between store clerks, and the giggles and smirks of girls behind counters, did not relieve the embarrassment Nelson felt at being sub-associated with Perry, and worse still, the compulsory recipient of loudly bawled pointers. In proportion as Nelson felt humiliated did Perry feel dignified and important.

The Bonehead had a wonderful faculty for calling people by their first names on the street. This, he doubtless argued, would impress the new "swipe" with a sense of his (Porter's) popularity. It does not take long for boys in a bank to conceive a high and mighty regard for position.

Back to the office from their morning round, Perry took it upon himself to teach Evan the mysteries of the Collection Register. After half an hour's faithful instruction the teller came along and inspected the work. Two dozen drafts had been entered wrong; "Drawer" was mixed up with "Endorser," dates of issue were confused with dates of maturity, and everything but the amounts was topsy-turvy.

"You are, without a doubt," said Castle, turning away, as was his habit, without trying to pull the boys through their trouble, "the worst mess I ever came across." His remarks were addressed to Perry, particularly.

Evan went flat. It is thrillingly unpleasant to find yourself an incompetent in the routine of an office when you could with ease recite Hugo's verses in French and write a long treatise on the Punic Wars. Evan inwardly shuddered. Perry stood beside him grinning and muttering imprecations on the teller.

"What difference does it make how you enter them?" he said, and grabbing a handful of drafts, stamped them at random with the bank's endorsement stamp and the "C" stamp.

Evan stood looking out of the back window. A robin, digging for food on a grassy plot, raised his bright little eyes to the bankclerk, as much as to say:

"Come on out, old chap. You'll never find anything to eat in that dark, musty place!"

As he gazed on the gay bird Evan remembered lessons from his childhood reader. His mind persisted in flying back to school-days. Why? Did he still crave knowledge? Was he hungry for something he knew the bank would never give him?

Years later Evan knew why his mind had dwelt upon the dear days of school life. At school he had had scope for his imagination and his genius, in the writings of poet and historian, inventor and novelist. He could drink as deeply as he would of the fountain of learning, and still the springs would be there for him, soothing, refreshing.

Not so in the bank. Although he knew little or nothing of the business as yet, something told him that here was a shorn pasture. He could find plenty of work for his hands, and bewildering, tiring work for his head; but where was there occupation and recreation for the mind?

Perhaps the fact that he was associated with a boy of Perry's calibre made the contrast between school and office wider. He recalled examination-days when he had sat before a long paper with a feeling of power and security. His pen could not travel fast enough, so familiar was he with French and Latin vocabulary and construction, Ancient History, Modern Literature, English Grammar, and other subjects. But here in the bank he stumbled over a sight draft for $4.17 drawn by a grocery firm and accepted by one Jerry Tangle.

Of course Evan exaggerated matters. Everyone who is homesick paints home in beautiful colors and daubs every other place with mud-grey. He forgot lamplight hours when he had wrested groans from Virgil and provoked the shade of Euclid, and remembered only the good old friends and the favorite studies of school-days. He did not know that Time would bring familiarity with bank routine and that he would learn to like the brainless labors of a clerk. He only knew that he felt hungry, empty; that he had given up something illimitable for a mathematical thing hedged about with paltry figures.

Evan was roused from his reverie by the feminine voice of Castle.

"Here you, get me ten three-dollar bills."

The teller handed him six fives. Evan was, for a moment, doubtful of the existence of the denomination asked for, but he reasoned that Castle would not give him the thirty dollars and look so serious if it were only a joke. He went around among the banks on a wild-goose-chase for the second time that day. A sympathizing junior from another bank met him on the street.

"Say, Bo," he said, grinning; "don't let 'em kid you any more."

Evan's eyes suddenly opened. He made a confidant of this fellow and asked him about the initiation tricks of bankclerks. He was warned against winding combinations, ringing up fictitious numbers on the telephone, and other misleaders.

Evan did not smile when he handed the six fives back to the teller. He said nothing in reply to Castle's question, until the teller grew intolerable; then he growled:

"Go to hell!"

Evan was not a profane individual, as a rule, but there were times when drastic measures seemed justifiable.

Castle looked at him with real anger, and came out of his cage.

"You darn young pup!" he exclaimed menacingly.

Watson raised his voice in a loud laugh, and drew the teller's attention to the new man. Mr. Robb came back to the cage for some change—and the storm did not mature.

Evan was not relieved. He wanted to have a row with Castle. But it was not the teller he worried about back at his own desk: it was himself. He was ignorant! With all his high-school education and his big marks in languages he did not know that combinations should not be wound, or that three-dollar bills were not somewhere in circulation. There was knowledge for him in the bank, after all!

And he decided to make that knowledge his. He applied himself to the office books, after that, and fought against the desire to quit and go back to school. He would ask questions about everything and know all there was to know.