A Canadian Bankclerk Part 52

"Haven't you been wondering, Evan," said Bill, puffing in his wonted fashion at a cigarette, "how I got--well, where I am?"

"I admit I have, Bill."

"Well, just listen to my story, and ask questions when I'm through....

Shortly after receiving your Hamilton letter I made up my mind to get some money somewhere and marry Hazel. She was working her head off and worrying herself to death about me; I couldn't stand it any longer. I made up my mind to _get money_. My chance came. The cash was short one thousand dollars one day--_my_ cash. I explained that I must have paid out two hundred tens instead of fives. It was Sat.u.r.day; they had transferred me to the second paying-box just a few days before. I figured that here was my chance to make a mistake. Now, being over twenty-one I was my own bondman, and the bank couldn't collect from anybody but me--or the guarantee company. I knew that, of course.

Well, I pretended to worry myself sick over the loss, and checked my vouchers over about a dozen times. At last I pretended to give up, and told them I would look no more for it.

"'All right,' said Castle, 'you'll have to put it up.'"

"I said nothing just then, but before long I told them I would go to jail before I'd put it up. I went to the manager, then to the inspector, and hung the bluff around. At last they decided to kick me out of the bank and let the guarantee company make good the loss. I hung around Toronto for a little while, with two five-hundred dollar bills tucked under my shirt. Soon I made a trip to Hamilton, captured Hazel, and came to Edmonton, Alberta. I struck it rich there. I cleaned up ten thousand bucks in a few months. After that it was easy to get fifty thousand. I'm worth a hundred now."

Bill smiled around his cigarette, and waited for his friend to speak.

It was no easy matter for Evan to find words, either, although he felt that Bill was telling the truth.

"Did you ever pay them back, Bill?" he asked, expectantly.

"Oh, yes," said Watson, drawing a registered-letter slip from his pocket. The receipt was made out to John Honig, for a thousand dollars. "Some a.s.sumed name that, eh, Evan?"

"Yes. How long did you hang on to the coin, Bill?"

"You see the date. I kept it as long as I thought it was coming to me.

You know I labored like a lackey for five years on half pay in the bank. They really owed me every cent of the thousand, but I only pinched the interest on it for two years. That wasn't much, eh? It made me rich, though; and so I ought to forgive the bank. What do you think of me, Nelsy, as a one-time Sunday School teacher?"

"I wasn't thinking of the right or wrong of it, Bill, but of your nerve. Just imagine what would have happened if they had caught you."

Bill laughed disdainfully.

"Jail couldn't have been any worse than that office. My conscience troubled me a while--until I found that the thousand was making me more. Then I knew I could pay it back when I liked. When you come to figure it all out, isn't that exactly what the banks do with the people's deposits?"

As the train wound its way along gorges and through tunnels eastward from Vancouver, Henty and Evan were silent. Evan was thinking of what Watson had done, and said. It was a fact that banks gave three per cent. interest on deposits, which they used on speculations in Wall Street and elsewhere; those speculations netting them such high dividends that great buildings had to be erected to conceal them. And how was the customer treated who wanted to borrow a few hundred dollars in an emergency? Even though he had been a depositor for years, getting three per cent., what sort of accommodation was the bank willing to give him when he was temporarily up against it? Evan knew.

He remembered too well the old excuse handed out to the customer, year after year: "We have to cut down our loans." Why did they _have_ to?

Why _do_ they have to? Who makes them, who wants them to do it? The eternal answer is "Head Office." But who is Head Office?--the bank.

The bank commands the bank to cut down its loans, just as it commands the bank to do many things detrimental to the country's good. And why not? Don't the people of Canada stand for it? Don't they give their money and sons to the banks, according to the traditions and idolatries of their fathers?

Evan's mind dwelt upon High Finance. He pondered and pondered on the thing Watson had done, and, in the light of common business morality, could find no fault with it; but in his heart he knew it was wrong.

The argument he found against it was a trite one, but true: "The wrongs of others are no palliation of ours." If the banks did wrong in using depositors' money to earn dividends for the rich, that was not the clerk's business--that was the _public's business_.

What then was the clerk's business? It was the clerk's business to see that he received a decent salary. He did real work, oh very real! and he was ent.i.tled to a salary upon which he could both live and, at a reasonable age, support a wife. Why didn't he get it? Because the bank could, by intimidation and repression, by promising and bluffing, get him for less than a living wage. But "why" was not so much to the point as "how." _How_ was he going to get it? How had other workers of every description obtained a bread-and-b.u.t.ter wage? By making themselves indispensable to their employers? Yes. And how accomplish that in banking? If any man thinks he can make himself indispensable to a bank _individually_, he is mistaken. But men in any trade or calling can make themselves necessary to an employer _collectively_ by co-operating; and co-operation is the only way. Evan knew that it was the only way for bankclerks to obtain their rights. The banks would not do business with an individual because they didn't have to; it was easier to dismiss him. But their offensively arbitrary methods could not be employed where a great number of clerks were concerned. If the bankclerks of Canada were united they could talk as a body, and the banks of Canada would be compelled to listen. It did not occur to Evan for a moment that the boys would go on strike: but they would have the power to strike, and, if the banks were mad enough to resent business negotiations, they would show that they _could_ strike.

Henty wakened out of his reverie and Evan began discussing bank union with him. They had money in their pockets and enthusiasm in their souls. They discussed the workings-out of the scheme, and youthfully pictured scenes that were brightest. Still, had they not dreamed of green fields and seen their dreams come true?

"How much are we going to spend on it, Evan?" asked Henty.

"I figure it will cost us two thousand dollars each to get the thing in motion. Then if the organization ever gets rich enough it may want to pay us back. Do you feel like affording so much?"

"Sure--I don't mind a couple of thou'."

Nelson laughed; he was happy. The spirit of the reformer had somehow got into his system and he thought only of the work before him. He tried to estimate the happiness it would bring to the worn-out clerk, the booze-fighting clerk, the forced-to-be-untrue lover clerk, the poor parents who spent their savings in fitting out juniors for the "glory of the bank," and the girls waiting in home towns.... His imagination came to a halt, for a s.p.a.ce, and he very unimaginatively sighed over by-gone illusions. Then he forgot the bitterness of disillusionment in a picture that framed itself on the window of the observation-car, against a dark background of pa.s.sing rock and pines. He saw himself walking beside Frankie on one of the streets of Hometon. Her dear eyes were downcast, but her hand was willingly in his, and they were speaking of the days when he should come back a manager! A longing made itself felt in his heart, a longing to go back and redeem his pledge; but he hesitated. He knew she was not married to Perry--Porter was no longer in Hometon--but Evan felt unworthy of her after a silence of over three years. He had often thought of writing her and asking forgiveness, but had not been in a position to marry her--until the syndicate came along. He had told himself all along that it was poverty that kept him from renewing his love; but now that poverty no longer stared him in the face, now that he could give her a home, he hesitated. Why?--Because he was afraid! He knew he loved her and he feared to run the risk of a rebuff by mail. Such is the cowardice of a guilty lover's heart. He realized that he had hurt her very deeply; hints from Lou had convinced him of that; and he felt that he would have to go for her in person and in earnest to fully demonstrate his all too mysterious affection. He had a strong impulse to stay on the train, with fifteen thousand dollars in his wallet, and make a run for Hometon; but he knew that would be rash. He wanted to go to Frankie with more than money; he wanted to go in all contrition and to carry news of his triumphs over the bank that had disgraced him.

"Where will we start in?" asked Henty, rousing.

For a moment Evan did not comprehend the question, then he smiled, remembering how readily Henty usually thought things out. A. P. must have been pondering very deeply to take so long a time in evolving that simple question. It was to the point, however; they might as well work from west to east, seeing that they were so near the Pacific and so far from the Atlantic. That consideration had caused Evan to hesitate when his impetuosity suggested Frankie at a single jump.

"Vancouver, I guess, A. P."

"That means," said Henty, grinning, "that I'll be a long time before I meet that Hometon girl of yours--of mine."

"Not so very long."

"What did you say her name was, again?"

"Arling--Frankie Arling. I'm sure you'll fall in love with her."

A. P. stretched, yawned and replied:

"I'm sure I will, too."

They sold out their stock and effects at a good profit--Henty always looked out for the profit. When the people of the village, fifteen miles away, heard that the boys of Bachelors' Bungalow were leaving they gave a dance, at which there were present lumberjacks as chief masters of ceremony and hotel-maids as belles. One of the village storekeepers was there, too, with bitter complaints against Fate.

"Dang you," he said, "how do you think a man's goin' to make a livin'

out of these c.h.i.n.ks? Dang me if it ain't a shame as you're leavin'."

"Cheer up, Uncle Dud," said Henty, "I'll be coming back with a wife sometime, and then your sales will double."

In less than a month after they had closed the deal with the syndicate the boys took leave of their bungalow. They still owned it and the little plot of ground on which it stood, but they were loath to leave just the same. A meadowlark sang them a farewell, and the sweetness of his song affected Henty's eyes. Nelson saw it and liked his friend better than ever.

"I don't blame them for wanting to make a townsite of this valley,"

said A. P., as they drove to the station. "They won't be stinging anybody no matter what they charge for the lots."

Before doing battle in Vancouver the two "farmers" held a day's consultation. They warmed up on a matinee, digested a Chinese dinner of chop suey and foyung, rice-cakes and various uncivilized desserts, went to bed late, and next morning had a plunge in the ocean. By that time they had decided Vancouver was a bad place to begin operations in, and they took boat for Victoria. There they really went to work.

Selecting one of the largest offices, Evan sauntered in and took a view of the staff. Henty was waiting around the corner. Strange to say, two or three of the bankboys were taking a rest by one of the desks.

Evan approached them and asked a general question about the town, as a stranger might. He liked the way one of the fellows looked at and talked to him, and made bold to reveal his ident.i.ty. The clerk held out his hand:

"Put it there!" he said; "will you come up to our rooms to-night?

We'll have a bunch there to see you that'll make your hair stand on end."

The ball was about to roll. Evan gave his promise and went out to rejoin Henty.

"A. P.," he said, "we've got them going. I've discovered the best way to proceed. Just spot some fellow who looks good to you and then lead up to the subject of X. Bankclerk. If he is not interested pa.s.s him up and keep on looking till you find someone who is; then leave the raising of a crowd to him. In cities like this we can afford to spend two or three days."

Henty was excited. He flushed as only he could flush, and closed his fists with nervous satisfaction.

The Victoria bankclerk got together a crowd, as he had promised; there were old and young fellows, tall and short fellows, but all good fellows. They forced Nelson into a speech, which they cheered and applauded. They insisted on ordering drinks, but Evan told them he would be disappointed if they started off a union that way. They were all anxious to have their names enrolled as first members of "_The a.s.sociated Bankclerks of Canada_." One of the boys went down to a bookstore and returned with a record book in which applications for membership were to be enrolled.

Nelson took the boys into his confidence, and their sympathy was aroused. He suggested that each man present do his best by letter or otherwise to enlist other clerks in the movement. Not only names but signatures were to be collected and pasted in the record book. Nothing was to be done that would put an instrument of destruction in the hands of head office. All letters were to be addressed to Evan Nelson, Hometon, Ontario. He wrote the post-office there to hold his mail for further orders.