A Canadian Bankclerk Part 40

"Good morning, Nelson," said Key, coming to call; "what time did you get balanced last night?"

"I had a first shot," replied Nelson.

"Hooray!" cried Key.

"At ten o'clock," added Evan, grinning. "I couldn't get things rounded up for a trial till then."

"Oh," said Key, rubbing his chin. "They ought to give you some return work.... How are you feeling these days?"

"Just average," answered Evan; "I had to cut out the cigarettes. I never smoked more than three or four a day at the most, but I find that I have fewer headaches when I leave them alone."

"Fewer headaches," repeated Key, in his peculiar way.

Evan smiled, and dived into the calling, drawing the time-worn battered old Key in with him. After a while the little man said:

"I suppose you count those headaches part of the game."

"Yes," and another chestnut rolled to the floor, "every business has its drawbacks."

"And every horse has its hold-backs," said Key, wondering whether it would sound like a joke or a child-speech. When it seemed to be lost on Evan, he corrected: "I meant 'every jacka.s.s.'"

"I see," returned the cash-bookman, "you think I'm a jacka.s.s for letting the bank hold me back."

"Yep!"

"So does Mr. Robb."

Key rested his blue pencil on an amount and looked across at Evan.

"You think we're soreheads, don't you, Nelson? Maybe we are. But let me ask you something. Supposing you had worked twenty years in the bank, and then they gave you, with great show, a little branch down in New Brunswick; supposing you went there and found that the bank had practically no business because it wouldn't oblige the community, and you started to lend money on good security, believing that a bank should be an a.s.set to, not a leech on, the country. Supposing you suddenly had the branch taken away from you, because you tried to make it, and were making it, a benefit to the community--and were sent back to a sweat-shop on reduced pay: then supposing a bright young fellow came into the branch with the dreams you used to dream yourself, when a boy--tell me, wouldn't you try to make him understand what a fool he was?"

For answer Evan asked a question:

"Is that what they did to you?"

"Yes, and that's what they've done to dozens of managers. Every other bank has done the same thing to some of its old stand-bys."

"Well," said Evan, "don't they do the same thing in other lines of business, in corporations and so on?"

"I hope not," replied Key, tearing a voucher with his pencil; "but even if they do that doesn't excuse the banks. I suppose all trusts pull off arbitrary stunts, but the bank trust is the only one I happen to have personal experience in."

"A fellow simply has to trust to luck, I suppose," replied Evan. "Some fellows seem to get along well enough in the bank."

Key grunted.

"There are two kinds that eventually get the best that the bank has--that's little enough: First, the w.i.l.l.i.e.s with a pull, and second, the sissies who siss. The fellow with originality and get-up is choked off, sooner or later. He usually manages to offend head office early in his career, and the rest of his bank life is--like mine! There are occasional lucky ones, as you say; but personally I'm not very strong for charms and stars. A fellow who has nothing stronger than luck to bank on may make a good race-track tout or fortune heeler, but not a business man. Don't work for any corporation or at any job where you're, so far as the position itself is concerned, dispensable; unless you are necessary to your employer, whether he be a magnate or an acre of land, jump the job."

Castle was pa.s.sing.

"Key," he said, in his falsetto-femina voice, "you're too slow at that calling. The clearing men need Nelson on a machine from now on.

You'll have to do less talking and faster work."

The grey-haired clerk reddened, but said nothing, aloud. What he said under his breath was sulphur-tipped.

It seemed to Key that every time the boys took a minute off to discuss personal affairs or the world outside the bank, a jealous bank demon showed its teeth.

The sentiments of Robb and Key made quite an impression on Nelson, but he argued that where there was so much said against the bank there must be a good deal to be said in its favor. He might have used the same argument with reference to a national evil, for instance.

"Hey, Nelson!" called Marks of the C's, "are you nearly through there?

We're in an awful mess here with the C---- Bank. Their clearing is balled every day."

"All right," replied the cash-book man, leaving a few odds and ends of his own work, "is it the Queen Street branch again?"

"Yes," said Cantel; "I think it's too near the Asylum grounds."

The savings man turned around and chuckled. "Mutt and Jeff get quite humorous at times," he said, pointing to tall Marks and short Cantel.

The paying-teller laughed, so did Willis and the cash-book man. There are moments of fun in a city bank, but they are brief and reactive.

The boys never get acquainted to any extent. They rarely help each other out, either, for they all have their hands full, and every bit of extra work they do reacts on their own post at night, early mornings, or Sundays. Sometimes there is a utility man, but he either dies young or prays for a move to the Maritime Provinces, where he can recuperate in a summer resort.

"That's enough from you, Johnson," said Marks; "crawl into that pipe of a savings and close the cover, or we'll make you smell the leather down cellar."

"You call the savings a 'pipe,' do you? Say, Marks, you'd have seven kinds of delirium tremens if you smoked this pipe."

Cantel tore off a slip and looked up.

"Ninety cents out," he said. "Marks is familiar with seventy times seven snakes already, Johnsy. He's getting to the crocodile stage.

Last night at the Gai--"

"Shut up, Cant," whispered Marks, frowning; "it isn't time for the great trump to sound, just yet."

"Who mentioned trumps?" inquired Jack Brower, one of the current ledgermen, who had come around to drum up "stuff."

The boys laughed in chorus.

"Hey, less noise out there," called Levison, already experiencing a "kick" from the laugh of a minute before.

Marks was about to waken Brower to a proper understanding when Charon popped around the paying-cage.

"Look here," he said sharply, "this noise has got to stop. What are you doing here, Brower? Can't they keep you in C's? What's the matter with the clearing anyway? ..... Nelson, I'm going to put this in your charge, and I want you to see that the ledgers have their stuff by ten-thirty at latest."

Thus another responsibility was loaded on the creaking shoulders of the cash-book man; but nothing was said of added remuneration. Every week or month, as a man increases his speed or loses his power of resisting imposition, he is screwed more and more tightly to the "wall," which, in banking, means a desk.

"Do you know what you are?" said Johnson to Evan, when the accountant had gone. "You're a darn idiot. Why don't you kick?"

"Aw, shut up," Marks b.u.t.ted in, "how's a fellow going to get out of it?

Why, Johnsy, you'd have a hemorrhage if you ever let yourself dream of talking back to the accountant."

Mr. Charon might stop the noise, but he could never put an end to the conversation of the clearing men. They rattled on, like their adding machines, jabbing back and forth and getting off speeches that are never heard in vaudeville, but still turning out the figures at a rapid rate. They worked mechanically, and their minds had to find diversion.