_SOME WHEEL-COGS COME TOGETHER._
It was the rule in Evan's bank that the branch to which a clerk was
moved should stand the expense of transportation. Evan was, therefore,
obliged to borrow ten dollars from the Banfield branch to buy a railway
ticket. There was no account, though, to which the voucher could be
charged, so the manager agreed to hold a cheque in the cash for a week;
that would give the transient clerk time to find a lodging in the city
and to put through his expense voucher on the Toronto office.
"Are you really serious about quitting, Henty?" asked Evan, as they
stood on the little depot platform. Filter was back at the office,
transferring leaves from the ledger to a file.
"You bet," said Henty; "I don't believe I ever would have stuck here if
you hadn't come along. That night you hit this dump I was
down-and-out, but you came across with a line of talk that cheered me
up. Honest, Nelson, you're one of the decentest lads I ever met."
Evan's laughter echoed from the woods west of the station. A few
Banfield folk scattered around waiting for the daily excitement of
seeing a train, looked at him askance, as if to say: "What do you
bankers care about a town? We see little of you when you're here; and
you go away with a laugh!"
"But," said Evan, "it will be a month before you can get off."
"That's nothing; I can stand it for four weeks, when I know that I'm
leaving."
"You speak as though the job really weighed on you."
"It does; I didn't realize it till now."
Up the track the train whistled.
"Well--good-bye, A. P. I think you're wise to quit."
"Thanks. Good-bye, old sport."
The color came in a flood to the big junior's face. There might just
as well have been a tear in his eye, under the circumstances. He
watched the train hurry away, eager to make up for the minute lost in
Banfield; then turned down the board walk toward the bank, with a sigh.
The hotel Evan found his way to, on arriving in the city, was on King
Street West. After checking in his baggage he wandered in some
direction, and, to his surprise, found himself gazing rube-fashion into
the very office to which he was assigned. Half the desks were lighted,
and clerks still worked on them, although it was past ten o'clock.
Evan sighed, like a sleeper who is tired out, and walked further on.
The first cross-street he came to was brilliantly lighted; its life and
gaiety had an effect upon him. He thought there were a great many
people going about. He dropped into a picture-show for over half an
hour, and when he came out the theatre crowds were pouring into the
street. Then he thought the city must be a delightful place to live
in. What a bunch of pretty faces!
About eleven o'clock he worked his way back toward the hotel. He
watched for the bank and found it still full of spectral activity. It
occurred to him that city life must be made up of pleasure and work,
without any rest. He was to find that largely the case.
Wondering what post he would be asked to fill in the main city branch
of his bank, the Banfield teller fell asleep. There is, however, a
somnolence unworthy of the name of sleep. Such was Evan's
unconsciousness. It may have been that he had a more sensitive
temperament than most bankboys, but, at any rate, it is a fact that
whenever anything out of the ordinary occurred in his life of routine
he was cursed with sleeplessness. Dreams had a liking for him, the
kind of dreams that incline to acrobatic feats and magic
transformations. He dreamt, this night as he tossed about, that he and
Henty were driving a herd of cattle up King Street, trying to steer
them toward the bank, where it was desirable to corral them, when
suddenly the kine raised up on their hind legs and became human beings,
many of them with charming faces.
As a result of his hallucinations he was burdened with yawning next
morning. After a light breakfast he set out for the bank, arriving
there at half past eight. Several of the clerks were working. He
rapped on the door, and the janitor, who was dusting, let him in.
"I'm a new man here," he said.
"Another victim, eh?"
Evan smiled. Apparently the place had a reputation.
"What's your name?" asked the bank's man.
"Nelson."
"Hey," called the janitor, "come here, Bill. Here's a new pal."
The individual named "Bill" slouched up the office.
"Well, for heaven's sake!" cried Evan. "I thought you were dead."
Bill Watson shook his old desk-mate's hand heartily, and wove
undictionaried words into his speech.
"Where have you been, Evan?"
"Why, don't you know? I've been teller and accountant at Banfield."
Watson smiled.
"One of those three-entry-a-day places?"
"No, sir; I worked nights more than half the time."
Bill grunted.
"This business is getting to be a son-of-a-gun, Evan. Even in country
towns the boys are being nailed down to it. The bank keeps cutting
down its staff, or otherwise losing them, and crowding more and more
work on the boys who stick."
Evan was silent for a while. Bill's familiar voice carried him back to
Mt. Alban, and he could see the office as it looked the day he began
banking. He could, moreover, see the faces of Julia Watersea and Hazel
Morton.
"Have you heard from the old town lately, Bill?"
"No, not for a year. I left there soon after you did. They sent me to
Montreal, then here. I got a few letters from Hazel when she was
there."
"Is she gone from the Mount?"
"Yes, d---- the bank and poverty!"
Watson's eyes fired and he spoke passionately. For the moment Evan's
presence had brought back Mt. Alban days too vividly. The color
gradually died from Bill's face.
"I'm a jackdaw, Nelsy," he said, trying to smile. "Do you remember how
I used to carry on up there? I had a rotten time in Mt. Alban, but it
was the best time I ever had. I wish to the good Lord I could do
something besides banking. But my salary is now $750, and I'm
twenty-three; I couldn't draw the same money at anything else, and
stand any chance of promotion. No mercantile house, for instance,
wants a man of twenty-three. What's a fellow to do?"
Unable to answer the question, Evan gazed out of the window at throngs
of men and girls on their way to business.
"Just look at that mob," said Bill; "lots of them are working on about
one-half what they're worth, and they've been years getting in where
they are. Take the young men you see, they've been specializing for
years, some of them, and draw about fifteen dollars a week now--just
what I do. Their chances are away ahead of mine, as a rule, because
some day they'll be salesmen or managers or something--and they're in
very little danger of being fired. Do you think for a minute I could
step out of here into their boots and get fifteen dollars. No, sir."
"Why stick to clerical work then?" asked Evan, repeating a question
that had often been ineffectively put to him.
"What else can I do?"
Evan opened his mouth to advise, but closed it again in thought; and
the longer he thought the more thoughtful he became. Bill was right,
what could he do? He might dig drains, but where would that lead him?
Downward, certainly. Still, there must be positions in so large a city
as Toronto, for men who could fill them. He expressed himself to that
effect.
"The trouble is to find them," said Bill. "When a fellow works from
eight in the morning until ten or eleven at night, and usually on
Sunday, what chance has he to look around? I'm never out of here till
six o'clock, at the earliest. You can't run across a job through the
night, you know. We don't even get out for lunch."
"You don't!"
"No; we eat those ten-cent stomach-aches handed around in carts.
Occasionally we get a cockroach, to relieve the monotony; but not
often. Usually it's just common flies. Sometimes I have such pains in
my interior I have to double up on a stool and pray for relief."
Evan smiled wanly. Bill was a reckless talker, but he generally
managed to say something sensible every two or three sentences.
"How about stenography, Bill?"
"That's all right for a fellow of eighteen or nineteen, Evan, who can
afford to start in at ten dollars a week. But when a fellow of
twenty-three applies for a job like that they think there is something
wrong with him, and some kid of seventeen, fresh from business college,
steps in ahead of him.... By the way, why don't _you_ quit?"
Evan looked toward the street again.
"I haven't had time to think about it lately. I thought, when they
moved me here, that something would turn up in the city. That's one
reason why I was so glad to come."
"Well, don't fool yourself," said Watson. "Your work in Banfield will
look like kindergarten when you're here a week. And don't have any
idle dreams about studying shorthand and typewriting at night; you'll
kill yourself if you try it. It isn't possible where fellows work like
they have to in a city bank. I imagine they'll shove you on the cash
book, where I am now. If they do, good night!"
"Is it written like the town cash book?" asked Evan, turning his
attention, from habit, to the work before him.
It is singular how soon a bankboy learns to give work or the discussion
of work precedence of everything else. He will go out on the verandah
at a party, with some of his confreres, and discuss banking until he
forgets the prettiest girl at the dance. He loves to flirt with his
work at a distance; at close range it fascinates but does not charm.
Watson laughed briefly.
"The general idea is the same," he said; "but there are a hundred
extras. It's the details of the city cash book, and of all other city
routine, that get your goat. It's not so much the quality of the work
as the quantity that eats you up. Believe me, kid, you're never done."
Realization only comes with contact. Watson led the new man back to
the cash-book desk, and proceeded to give him an outline of the work.
Evan's vision swayed. At first he was unable to formulate an
intelligent question. When he began asking Bill said, apologetically:
"Sorry, kid, I'm not balanced yet. You'll have to take another lesson
again. Maybe they won't put you on this post after all. No use of
wasting good energy till you have to."
Therewith Bill grappled with his big red-backed book, and looked
neither to the right hand nor to the left.
Toward nine o'clock the boys began coming into the office in
instalments. As they passed Nelson, who was leaning against a desk,
some of them nodded, recognizing a comrade, but most of them passed by
with merely a glance. Men were coming and going every week.
Evan had speculated on the sensation he would make as he--a real, live
pro-accountant--walked into the city office. Where was the sensation
now? Within himself. He experienced an involuntary chill; the
machinery of which he constituted a cog was beginning to grind. He
should not have been so susceptible to those petty influences that
impregnate a new environment; but he was below normal health by reason
of work and worry endured at Banfield, and inclined to look on the dark
side. Instead of going to work in a city bank he should have taken a
trip to the country and engaged with a farmer to plant onions or
shingle a barn.
At the front of the office there were two desks. Evan asked one of the
juniors, of which there were three, who occupied these desks.
"The accountant and assistant-accountant," was the answer.
Branch men were familiar with the signature of the Toronto accountant,
for he always signed the letters; but not with his assistant.
"What's the assistant-accountant's name?" asked Evan.
"Castle," said one of the boys; "Mr. Alfred Castle."
Toronto was destined to be a nest of surprises for the Banfield clerk;
he might as well begin getting used to them.
"Do I report to the manager?" he asked Watson.
"No," said Bill, "the manager won't know you till you're here a month
or so. You report to Alfy."
"You didn't tell me _he_ was here," said Evan.
"Didn't I? Well, it wasn't very important anyway. I forgot you ever
knew Castle. I'd like to forget him myself. Without kidding, Nelson,
he is the best imitation of a sissy I ever saw. He has a pull, though,
and it almost makes him brave, sometimes. I don't say anything to him
any more--he'd have me fired, and I need the little fifteen dollars per
week, minus guarantee premiums."
Bill had wasted a minute, so he cut off short and delved into the cash
book once more, muttering curses on the third teller, who was out in
the additions of his teller's cash book.
Castle entered the bank about 9.15. He wore a light tweed suit, a
light felt hat, tan gloves, tan shoes, and a black necktie stuck with a
pearl pin. The juniors, who had been indulging in an early row over
the condition of the copying rags, sobered down when Castle's narrow
form glided through the inner door.
Evan, who had been watching for him, went toward him easily, and held
out his hand.
"Well, Nelson," said Castle, without offering to shake hands, "you'll
go on the cash book."
Evan lingered a moment, expecting to be asked a personal question, even
if it were a careless one; but Alfred dived into his mail and did not
pause as he added: "Watson will break you in."
"And if ever I get the chance," thought Evan, "I'll break you in."
With that and other hostile reflections he turned and walked to the
rear of the office.
"Bill," he said, "I'm to go on your job. What do you suppose they'll
do with you?"
Watson looked at him comically.
"Never worry about the other fellow," he said; "not here. It's each
man for himself in a city office and God help the hindermost. Don't
forget that, Evan, or you'll be imposed on right and left. Now, come
here and get a bird's-eye view of your new friend. You'll find him a
nasty brute to handle; he rears, bites, bucks and balks. The time you
think he is going to take you over the river he turns tail, and you hit
a balance about 1 a.m. You not only have to balance your friend the
cash book, you've got four tellers to balance, and they have everything
beat for bulls. Our old friend 'the porter' wasn't in it for a minute
with these mutts here."
"Are you ready?" shouted a resonant voice.
"Yes," said Bill. "Mr. Key, meet Mr. Nelson, from Banfield. Now,
Nelsy, beat it to the basement till we get through calling. You'll
need a cigarette to fix you up for the day's work."
"Yes," said Key, "take all the constitutionals you can get;" then in a
loud voice: "Credit clearing house--come on, come on!"
Away they went, while Evan stood by in hope of learning something. He
lost the trend of things looking at Key's white hair and faded face.
He wondered how many years the little man had been a bankclerk.
Besides Key there was another clerk with grey hair.
"Who's that?" Nelson asked the oldest and most talkative junior.
"Mr. Willis. He was a manager once, but head office didn't like his
policy, so they cut his salary down from $2,400 to $1,400 and sent him
here to this sweat-shop to finish it out."
"To finish what out?"
"Why, his career. Some career, eh?"
Evan suddenly remembered that he was a country accountant, and it was
poor policy to abet a junior in heterodoxy.
"He must have done something wrong, didn't he?"
The junior, a sharp youngster, looked extremely indignant now.
"No chance," he said; "Willis is one of the decentest heads around this
dump. He made no bulls: it was a pure question of policy. Ask
anybody. The collection man over there" (pointing to a red-haired
fellow of about thirty) "used to work with him. I brought Johns in the
bills before three o'clock last fourth of the month and he opened his
heart to me. Johns is my pal around here, although he never sees me
outside the office."
"You seem to like him pretty well," said Evan, smiling.
"I do. I let the other kids have Castle's work; when that guy travels
east I always go west."
Seeing how nihilistic and iconoclastic the young chap was, Evan deemed
it unwise to longer remain in his society; he wandered across to the
"C" desk. There, two men were ruling up large books in preparation for
the morning's clearing. They were standing with their faces to the
light and working with indelible pencils. That job always affected
their eyes, Evan was told, after a few weeks or months.
The clearing came in. The paying teller shouted for the fourth teller.
The latter was in the basement--but not for long. Two "C" men had him
by the collar and were bringing him up the cellar steps in jumps.
"We're sick of late clearings," said Marks, the "husky guy with the
small ankles," as he was called.
"Any more of this monkey-doodle business," rejoined Cantel, "and we'll
distribute you around the coal basement."
"Aw, shut up," growled the fourth teller; "you'd think your clearing
amounted to something."
Ten minutes later the two current-account ledger-keepers were howling
for "more stuff." They looked like a couple of hungry wolves, and kept
up their yowling as persistently as those wild rovers.
"See here," bawled Marks, "you guys got to wait till we get it. What
in ---- do you think we are--jugglers or magicians? It's rather hard
to balance it, you know, Brower, till we get it out of the envelopes.
Get me?"
"No, but I will get you," retorted Brower, "if you don't grease that
adding machine."
Cantel grinned, and kicked his desk-mate, Marks.
"Say, Ankles," he said, "we'll get him in the basement at noon and I'll
suggest gloves, eh?"
He with the tapering figure made no reply; he was chasing nine cents up
and down a long adding-machine strip.
"They must have a brilliant bunch over at the S----," he said, grinding
his teeth; "I never knew one of their slips to balance."
Key had done so much checking in his day he looked upon the calling of
the cash book as a morning recreation. The rest of the day he had
little time to talk, so he got a large number of stray sentences into
the totals that made up the cash book.
"Debit nine eighty-five drafts issued," he called--"tell Banfield to
come over here--get it?--credit head office branch account six hundred
even--how long has he been here?--I called that once--exchange on money
orders fifteen cents--Well, Mr.--er--No! I said fifteen. What's the
matter with you, Watson, were you drunk again last night?"
And so on. Key suggested to Nelson that he wander around the office
during the forenoon and get a general idea of the way things were done.
"You'll find it a new business altogether from country banking," he
said, not very much to the new man's encouragement.
Following Key's advice Evan endeavored to learn a few generalities.
About the only thing he learned, however, was that every man had a post
that kept him busy every minute, and did not want to be interrupted.
One grouchy chap looked at the Banfield man and said:
"Say, Nibs, the bank doesn't pay us to instruct greenhorns; it only
pays us to get through this dope you see here, and half pay at that."
Evan was offended; one of Henty's blushes came to his cheeks.
"I don't think anything you could teach a fellow would be worth much
anyway," he replied; and the teller next door stopped in the middle of
a heavy deposit of putrid money to laugh and remark:
"Strike one for Banfield."
It seemed to Evan that he was going through
juniorship days again. Nobody appeared to have any respect for him.
Still, as far as that was concerned, nobody had any respect for
anybody. He consoled himself with this observation.
What was called "noon hour" came anywhere between noon and three
o'clock. The tellers bolted their portion of food with monied hands,
stopping between bites to serve a customer. The ledger-keepers ate
with their backs to the wicket, turning around nervously every time
anyone rustled a slip of paper or made sounds like a pass-book on the
ledge. The "C" men and one or two others were privileged to eat in the
basement, but when one was balanced another wasn't, and as a balance
aided digestion and the man ahead had not the time to wait for the one
behind, they usually ate alone. Sometimes, by particularly good
management, several of the boys got together for five minutes below and
scuffled; but the fun was short-lived.
Evan ate his hand-out on an old lounge in the furnace-room. It was for
all the world like a prison cell. Outside, the city was bright and
wonderful; in the dark, chill office and gloomier cellar there was but
one factor, one idea--Work.
The Banfield teller felt singularly alone in that basement, eating a
cheese sandwich. The boys were so engrossed in their own affairs they
had no time for welcoming new men. Aside from the two ledger-keepers
and the two "C" men, the boys were almost strangers to each other. The
Banfield man would have to learn, like the others, to affiliate with a
book. He wondered, as he sat in the basement alone, how long it would
take him. He speculated on the hit Filter would make in that soulless,
endless city-office swirl.
The morning had been confusing to the new man, but the afternoon was
chaotic. He stood beside Watson, trying to get the multitudinous
cash-book entries through his head, until he was played out. He yawned
repeatedly and his head pained ominously. Two and a half years of
office work were telling on him, although he scarcely realized to what
extent, and but for a very fortunate circumstance--which seemed to Evan
an extremely unfortunate one--he would have experienced a nervous
breakdown before long. But more about that circumstance later.
The bank door closed at three o'clock. Many people have an idea that
work inside a bank ceases at that hour. That is one of the many
delusions cherished respecting the business, one of the harmless
delusions. After three o'clock, especially in a city office, the real
strain begins. Tellers must balance their cash, and, on salaries
varying from $600 to $1,200 (often less than the former, but not so
often more than the latter) make good any loss sustained through the
day. Every balance is a nervous shock and drains away its share of the
clerk's vitality; if the chance of personal loss is hidden away in his
balance, the strain is that much the worse.
In the din that followed closing, Evan thought his head would burst.
The boys lighted their pipes and cigarettes, threw off their coats, and
commenced the scramble. Curses and complaints came from every quarter.
The place was a madhouse.
Even up in the accountant's department there was loud talking. Evan
was up there looking for the draft register when he heard the
accountant say:
"It's got to be stopped. If you think we're going to stand for this
sort of thing you're badly mistaken."
The man to whom V. W. Charon was speaking trembled slightly, not from
fear of the accountant but under the influence of alcohol. He lifted
his weary, glassy eyes to reply, but his lips moved inaudibly and he
stared at Evan.
"This has happened twice in the last month," continued Charon, sharply.
"Three times," corrected Castle.
The broad-shouldered figure paid no attention to anyone but Evan. He
staggered past the accountants and held out his hand to the new man.
"Sorry to--s-see you here," he stammered.
Evan grasped the hand of his old manager, Sam Robb.