A Canadian Bankclerk Part 20

_A SPORT GONE TO SEED._

The manager at Banfield sighed in relief when Evan entered the office.

An afternoon rush was on.

"Can you take this over, Nelson?" he asked, edging away from a cackling woman-customer.

Without a word the teller threw his overcoat on a stool and entered the cage with his hat on. Before the wicket farm-folk stampeded, struggling to get their noses against the iron railing and to blow their breath on the weary-looking teller. A heap of germ-laden money lay temptingly within reach of the rustics, only separated from those grimy, grasping fingernails by plate gla.s.s.

A shudder pa.s.sed over Evan as he took his stand in front of the crowd.

He felt something of what a martyr must feel who faces trial at the hands of a mob. It was market-day. The Banfield bank had made a practice of cashing the tickets of hucksters who came from Toronto and bought up the people's produce on a margin. These tickets had to be figured up by the teller, cashed and afterwards balanced. Many of the customers made small deposits, after blocking the way to leaf over their money with badly soiled fingers (surely they needn't have been quite so dirty!); bought money-orders, opened new accounts "in trust"

for relatives, asked questions--did everything thinkable to hara.s.s the teller.

Besides the produce tickets there was the ordinary banking business of the day. Occasionally a regular customer came in to cash a cheque, and finding himself unable to get near the wicket went out in considerable of a rage, trying to slam the automatically-closing door. Evan was supposed to keep his eye open for these "regulars," but to-day his head swam and he was obliged to concentrate on the tickets to avoid mistakes. An error on his part might easily involve him in personal loss; but if he "made" anything on the cash, that went to Cash Over Account.

A loud voice was heard in the manager's office.

"I won't stand for it," said the voice. "If you can't wait on me ahead of these old women you can do without my business."

"Give me your cheque, Mr. Moore, I'll have it cashed for you," said Mr.

Jones, conciliatingly.

"No, sir, if I can't----"

The manager, more than half ill, lost his temper.

"Go then and be ----!" he shouted, and left his office to the burly intruder.

Moore shouted after the manager, making sure every gossip in the office would hear:

"I'll report you! I'll report you--you're no kind of a manager, and I'll have you kicked out of here."

Storming, the big farmer strode from the bank. Henty, the husky junior, was red in the face. Evan looked at him and smiled.

"What's the matter, A. P.?"

"I was just spoiling for the fray," said Henty, comically; "another minute and I'd have thrown that yap out."

After office hours Evan discovered that the cash had not been balanced for Sat.u.r.day the 24th. He had, therefore, two days' balances on his hands--hands that were weary already. It is always hard work to balance after Christmas; but when your head aches, the office air is bad, there has been an upheaval with a customer, and you have two balances to find--well, it is no fun. Added to his other troubles, there were the returns for the 23rd; they had not yet been written.

Head office would be sending a memo.

Even a winter's day, in a Canadian bank, is not all gloomy, however.

Nelson's boarding mistress soothed him at suppertime with a cup of her good tea. Mrs. Terry was a kind soul and a good housekeeper. She was the oasis in Banfield's dusty desert. Notwithstanding, no cup of tea on the most welcome of oases could have prepared Evan for the intelligence awaiting him at the office when he got back to work in the evening. The manager sent for him.

"Nelson," he said, "I'm going to resign. My health won't stand this business. I'm going on a farm."

The young bankclerk was dumfounded. To think of a man giving up a $1,100 position for a farm! Evan was not old enough to appreciate the value of health. He thought Jones must have had something organically wrong with him before ever entering a bank, and that now he acted on the promptings of a sour stomach.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Jones," he said quietly; "I've had great experience under you."

"Yes," returned the manager, "you're a wonder for your age, Nelson. Do you know how much you are worth to the bank?--just about what I'm getting."

Evan felt his head swim. He forgave Jones the unbalanced "blotter,"

and had a sudden notion that he could dig up, at that moment, any difference that ever happened.

"I'm tired," said Jones, "of being worried by unreasonable a.s.ses on the one hand and head office on the other. I'm sick of being a servant."

"How long have you been in the bank?" asked Evan, pensively.

"Twenty years, and my salary is $1,100 with free rent. I was pushed into the business when about sixteen. At that time banking was a profession that all young fellows envied. I was the proudest man alive when they accepted me. And my folk, they didn't do a thing but plume themselves on it."

The teller was silent a while.

"Things change fast in the bank, don't they?" he observed, reflectively, thinking of himself and his career.

"You bet they do," replied Jones. "Banking isn't the same business it used to be at all. Salaries haven't kept up with the times. A bunch of junior men are now employed to fill posts that experienced clerks used to occupy. The bank makes a policy of recruiting--even going to Europe, where clerks think five dollars is equal to a pound sterling--to keep down expenses. A boy like yourself can, by heavy plodding, do the work of a ten-year clerk. He may not do it so accurately, but he gets it done at last, and that is what the bank wants. He does it, too, on a wage that should frighten future battalions, no matter how brave and countrified, away from the business."

Evan felt, for the moment, that Sam Robb was speaking. He thought of the day he had accused Robb of cherishing a grudge against the business, of being "sore on his job." But here was meek little Jones repeating the sentiments of the Mt. Alban bachelor manager. It was enough to make one think. Evan did think, and he began to open his mind to a wider criticism of the business. He began to wonder if he had been cut out for a bankclerk. Why had Robb repeatedly made anti-banking suggestions to him? Had he seen incapacity for clerical work in the Mt. Alban swipe? Did Jones discern a similar inapt.i.tude for bank service and hint things for the teller's benefit? Was there a chance that he (Evan) possessed faculties that must die in the business of his mother's choice, and that these qualifications were plainly visible to men older in life and the banking business than himself? At times Evan felt underfitted for the bank, and at other times overfitted. His spirits varied accordingly. Most of the time, however, his mental att.i.tude "balanced," and inactivity of thought was the result. He had reached inertia of mind before his conversation that night with Jones was finished.

"Sometimes," he confessed, "I wonder where I am at."

"That describes the average bankboy," replied Jones, promptly. "He drifts along for years in just that frame of mind. When he rouses himself to thought a flood of work comes along and drowns him. Then he sleeps for another month or two. I don't believe there is a cla.s.s of boys on earth who do less thinking and planning for their future than Canadian bankclerks."

"That's funny," said Evan to himself, "I had a hunch when I joined the bank that that was the case. Guess I've grown used to their ways."

Automatically his mind reverted to the work out there in the office waiting for him.

"Here I am, wasting time," he said, jokingly, "while two days' balances and a mess of other work are waiting for me. Is there anything else you want to speak about, Mr. Jones?"

The manager looked at him with eyes so unprofessional they might never have focused on anything so mean as a past-due bill, or a head office bull.

"Nelson," he said frankly, "you are the right sort of stuff to succeed.

You will succeed in the bank: but take my advice and get out of it. If you stick you will some day be a city manager--but get out. How long have you been in the service?"

"Almost two years."

"Well, if you had labored in some other business two years, with the intelligence and ballast you have shown around here, you would now have had a desk somewhere and a phone at your elbow."

The teller smiled embarra.s.sedly, and rising, asked:

"When will your resignation go?"

"Right away."

While the manager and teller were discussing the philosophy of banking, the ledger-keeper and junior were worrying a battered-looking savings.

Henty was leaning on his elbows and yawning. His eyes followed endless columns of figures, while the ledger-keeper called from the ledger.

Filter purposely called an amount wrong, and kept going. When he was five accounts past the "baited" balance Henty shouted:

"Hold on, call No. 981 again!"