He says: "Have you any buttons like this?" showing one about fourteen
years old. You look at him insolently and say "Nah!" (meaning "No,
sir"). This makes the other clerk (who plays billiards with you) laugh
very heartily, but it makes your employer laugh out of the other corner
of his mouth, for he has no business to keep such a clerk, and the
customer knows it. The customer may avenge himself by refusing an
extension on a note which he holds, and that note, possibly, may have
your employer's name on it! The mistake you make in this particular case
is in applying the manners of a billiard-saloon to the uses of a place
of business. A very ordinary-looking old man was one day standing in a
great bank in New York City. He was talking with a friend, and the
friend spoke of desiring to have a draft cashed which had been drawn in
his favor. Knowing that the old man banked at that place, he asked him
to step up to the paying teller and identify the drawer of the money.
This the old man, naturally, attempted to do. He said: "I know this
gentleman to be Alvin H. Hamilton." The paying teller looked at the old
man and judged him by his clothes. He said: "I don't know you at all,
sir! Pass along." This did not please the old man. He expostulated.
"Pass along!" yelled the teller, looking ominously toward the policeman,
who edged toward the group.
"I'LL PASS ALONG!"
said the old man, hotly. And he drew a blank check, engraved in a costly
manner, from his pocket, and wrote on the "please-pay" line "Five
hundred and fifty thousand dollars." Then he signed his name to it,
turned it over, put his name on the back of it, and got in line again.
By the time he was at the window the word had gone along the line. The
receiving teller, the collecting clerk, the certifying clerk and the
examiners, had passed the news to