A Canadian Bankclerk Part 4

"How do you like banking by this time?" he asked soberly.

"I'm beginning to like it better," said Evan.

After a pause: "You know, they're apt to move a fellow any time; even you might be moved. You've got along a whole lot better than most juniors, and I wouldn't be sur----"

The ledger keeper broke off--the telephone was ringing. He took down the receiver and began to talk loudly enough for Evan to hear.

"Yes, long distance. Where? Toronto! All right. h.e.l.lo. Yes, this is the S---- Bank, Mt. Alban. Yes, this is one of the clerks. Who?

Watson put his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered excitedly to the staring junior:

"It's the inspector!" Then he continued to speak: "Yes, sir, we have two junior men here. Yes, sir, one of them is here now. Three weeks.

Yes, he's pretty good. You want to speak to him, sir?"

Watson turned to Evan.

"Inspector wants you," he said in a businesslike way.

Evan felt his knees weaken. He stared at the ledger keeper despairingly, but bucked up when Watson said:

"Don't keep him waiting--remember he's the inspector."

"h.e.l.lo," said Nelson, feebly. "Yes, sir. I--I suppose so, sir, if the b-bank wants me to. Report there at once?--all right, sir, I'll try--I mean I'll report--"

He hung up the receiver and murmured: "Berne!"

"Well," said Watson, like one who had been waiting in suspense for the news, "does he want to move you?"

The ledger keeper laughed very hard and called it a good joke.

"But it will mean more money for me, won't it?" asked Evan, anxiously.

"Sure, your salary will probably be doubled. They may put you on the cash there. It's an out-of-the-way place, you know, and you're practically an experienced man by now."

A few minutes later two of the boys from another Mt. Alban bank came to the front door and were admitted by Watson. They formed a semicircle around the latest man of the hour in bank moves, and plied him with questions. They appeared to enjoy the thought of his being moved to a remote quarter of the province. The thing finally struck Evan himself as funny, and they all indulged in a very satisfactory laugh. It developed later, but not before Evan had telegraphed the exciting news home to his mother, that only three out of the four had known what they were laughing at.

Soon after a boy enters the bank he begins to look for something exciting, in the form of promotion, or a move. He is given to understand that many interesting and profitable changes await every bankclerk; he knows not the day nor the hour when he may be transferred to far-off green fields, filled with strange girls and other "things"

to make life pleasant. It is this ever-growing expectancy which gives banking a fascination for young men, especially country boys. They cannot see the day of weariness and monotony that is coming, the day of poverty and celibacy, because between that time and the present there is a golden glamor, a flame of luring light. This flame is fanned by the windy tongues of reckless clerks and fed with the "oxygen" that escapes from head office envelopes.

Evan believed it possible for his reputation to reach the ears of the inspector after three weeks' service, and, although he was surprised for the moment, he considered it reasonable enough that one of the high-up officials should communicate with him over the telephone. All night he counted cash in a nightmare and saw himself signing letters to head office as "pro-accountant." Early the following morning he packed his trunk and mentally bade his room good-bye. On his way to the telegraph office, before eight o'clock, he was surprised to meet Mr.

Castle, the teller.

"I heard about it, Nelson," said Castle, stopping him on the street, "and came down to inform you. This funny work has got to stop."

The teller-accountant was partial to verbs of command.

"What's that?" said Evan, bewilderedly.

Then Castle explained the frame-up, and, leaving the junior to console himself on his first big disappointment, went up town to breakfast.

"Long distance" had meant across the street in a compet.i.tive bank.

The feelings of humiliation and chagrin experienced by the poor "swipe"

were exactly those that come to all bankboys in the days of their initiation. It was the beginning of wisdom for Evan: though the end was a long way off. Just as he had fallen from the position of pro-accountant to junior, and from $400 to $200, in one minute, would he tumble off many another pinnacle, on his way to solid ground.

It was a week before the Berne sensation died out in the "banking circles" of Mt. Alban. It expired one balance night, the end of the month of May. Everything but work must be forgotten in a bank when balance day comes.

The manager was back at his desk by seven o'clock, the teller in his cage a few minutes later, Watson turned up about seven-thirty--the savings-man had taken no nourishment at all. With a pair of red ears and a mouth full of indelible he sat propped up to his savings ledger, the picture of idiocy. His lips moved unintelligibly as he slowly crawled up a long row of figures, smearing the sheet en route. At regular intervals he stopped in the middle of a column, muttered profane repet.i.tions, and started at the bottom again. Watson cast a twinkling eye on poor Perry.

"Hadn't you better graze, Port?"

No reply. This was a fight to the finish with Porter. His opponent had him throttled, but still he was game. The current-account ledgerman laughed ecstatically to himself. Castle was annoyed.

"Don't laugh, Watson," he said, again using his favorite imperative, "you'll have to balance the savings yourself anyway."

Bill Watson squinted through the wire at his fellow-clerk.

"The 'Rules and Regulations' put that up to the accountant," he said, still smiling. Castle ripped a blotted sheet out of his "blotter," but made no answer.

Evan had hurried through with his mail and his supper, and was now intensely occupied in adding the interest table. He was shown an out-of-date table with figures at the bottom of each page, and told that every month the junior had to add those stereotyped columns. Like all bank beginners, Nelson did not use his brains. Juniors are taught (1) to obey, (2) to work, (3) to ask no foolish questions. No matter how absurd a task appears, perform it without a kick. The happy-go-lucky boys take a chance and ask questions rather than do what seems to be unnecessary work; but Evan was the conscientious kind, the kind that obeys unquestioningly and never lets up until fully convinced of error. There is a n.o.ble six hundred in the bank, as well as the army; but in the bank the number is greater than six hundred.

Perry was working hard this balance-night, but not from a sense of duty--he wanted to show the management that he could balance that savings ledger. Porter was a bulldog; Evan more like a sleigh-dog.

The manager and the teller-accountant left the office about eleven o'clock. Watson was "out" a small amount in the current ledgers, but had left them to take down a new set of balances for Porter. Yawning hopelessly, Perry leaned against the desk, wondering how on earth he had ever managed to be out $396,492.11 in a ledger with deposits of only $400,000.....

The town of Mt. Alban was silent. The main street was in darkness, except for the gleam that came from the windows of three bank buildings. It was past midnight, but out of twenty bankboys in the town, fifteen were still working.

In one of the banks a young clerk slept, with his head on his hands and his hands on an interest table. The ledger-keeper found him thus.

"Too dang bad," he said to Perry; "I forgot all about him.... Hey, Nelson, it's morning!"

Evan raised his head and opened his eyes. Watson smiled good-naturedly.

"It's a shame to kid you," he said. "This was another b.u.m steer. But the practice in adding won't hurt you, eh?"

Nelson stumbled up the back stairs and fell asleep on his bed to the tune of an adding-machine, run by Porter. In his dreams he stood at the foot of a mighty column--of figures. It reached to the clouds. A ghostly friend of Jack-in-the-Beanstalk's whispered to him that he must climb that column if he would reach Success. Evan began the ascent.

CHAPTER III.

_A MAN OF THE WORLD._

Miraculous as it seemed to Evan, the ledgers were finally made to balance. Porter lengthened his stride a foot and walked once more well back on his heels--just as if his bad work had not been responsible for a three days' dizzy mixup. A certain Sat.u.r.day afternoon came round.

"I guess we can do without you till Monday noon," said the manager, over Nelson's shoulder, as the latter pondered over an unwritten money-order.