_THE MACHINERY GRINDS._
Castle turned his head and sneered, just as he used to do in Mt. Alban.
"You must come up and s-see me," said Robb.
"I will," replied Evan.
Watson came along for the draft register, winked at Robb, and returned
to his desk, followed by Nelson.
"Is Mr. Robb one of the clerks here, Bill?"
"Yes--liability ledger. I had it on my mind to-day to tell you, but
you were not around when I remembered what it was that bothered me.
Sam's been here several months. They took his job away from him
because of letters Alfy wrote."
Nelson could hardly believe it.
"The calf," he muttered. "What does Robb think about it?"
"Oh, he doesn't say much. He works like a nigger, all but about two
days a month--when he goes on a tear. Been hitting the can a lot
lately."
"I don't wonder," said Evan; "what has he to live for?"
He had something, though, as every man has--his self-respect. But one
sometimes loses that when others do not attribute it to him.
Evan had never felt more incompetent than when Watson asked him to take
out a balance. He could just as easily have "taken out" a degree at
the Toronto University. While he fretted his still pounding head, Bill
rode the round-up of registers, supplementaries and totals. Long drawn
out exclamations reverberated in whatever corner of the office he
happened to be searching.
"Teller's book," he shouted behind the paying teller; "come on, Sid."
The poor teller was short in his cash. Bundles were piled almost to
the top of the cage; he snatched them up one by one and ran through
them. He had a sore hand, too; it had been poisoned by infectious
money. Two weeks later, when the teller had returned from sick-leave,
head office refused to pay his doctor's bill, insinuating that the
poison might be something else!
"Get out of here, you wolf," yelled the teller; "you're more ----
bother than ----"
"I'm sorry for you, old kid," interrupted Watson, laughing; "give us
your book, I'll add it up and maybe find your difference."
Sid Levison hesitated, picked his book up quietly, and faced Watson
with:
"You're a yard wide, Bill. I wish we had more of you around here. I
got in $50,000 in parcels this afternoon and Charon wouldn't send any
relief. Gee, but I'm tired, and my hand pains infernally."
He yawned so widely his glasses fell off. Relieved of them, his face
looked peaked and his eyes inflamed and weary.
"Meet Mr. Nelson from Banfield, Mr. Levison."
"How are you?" said the teller, offering his hand; "used to work there
myself, years ago."
Then he turned to his money.
"How long has he been in the bank?" Evan asked Watson.
"About ten or twelve years, I think."
"He should be a manager by now."
"Sure," said Bill, "I could handle an easy chair myself for that
matter. There are at least ten clerks in this office who could manage
a branch, but everybody can't have one, you know. Managerships are
sugar-plums to be handed out carefully by head office."
"I see," said the new man. "But," he added, "the banks claim they are
very hard up for managers."
"That's because the job isn't up to much when you do get it; a good
many fellows get out when they find what they're up against. A lot of
this talk about the great opportunities of banking originates in head
office and is peddled around the country for a purpose. The bank has
the greatest advertising system in the country and the least expensive.
It carries the biggest bluff on earth. The bank's on a par with
political flag-wavers when it comes to handing the people the bunco."
About five o'clock Mr. Willis, the old general-ledger clerk and
ex-manager, edged over toward the cash book, with his hat on and a pipe
in his mouth.
"Well, Watson," he said, lighting a match, "how's your successor coming
along?" The match was burning down, but Willis held it tantalizingly
away from the pipe while he added: "Why don't you introduce him?"
While the match threatened to burn the old clerk's fingers he slowly
greeted Evan, and puffing a last flickering flame into his bowl, in a
way that showed how closely he had, during years of smoking, studied
the science of combustion, asked:
"How do you think you are going to like city work, Mr. Nelson?"
"It doesn't look very good to me," said Evan. "I'm off color to-day;
my head is bursting."
"Why don't you go home?"
"Yes, go on," said Bill; "I didn't know you were all in. You certainly
don't look any too frisky."
"I may be on the job alone to-morrow, though," replied Nelson, "and
just yet I don't know the first thing about it."
Neither Willis nor Watson advised him against the wisdom of learning
things when he had a chance, so he stayed. No doubt they knew how it
felt to be up against a new post in the middle of a day, with everyone
too busy to lend a hand, or even a suggestion. The perspiration that
has been lost under those circumstances would make quite a stream.
Bill had a bad balance. He worked till ten o'clock, taking half an
hour off to eat supper. Evan stuck to it, too. When he got to his
hotel he had nervous indigestion and a violent headache. He took
quinine and went to bed, more or less disgusted with life. When the
drug began to work and the pain of his head was soothed, a peaceful
lethargy crept over him, and he wished that he might lie in such repose
forever. He dreaded thought of the days to come, for he had had a
glimpse of sedentary slavery.
"Oh, pshaw!" he murmured, and ebbed out into Dreamland.
The next morning he awakened late, and did not wait for breakfast. He
was the last man to work.
"We begin operations here at nine, Nelson," said Castle, as the new man
walked past him.
Evan stopped and looked back, but said nothing. He was not in a humor
to explain his semi-sickness to one like Alfred Castle.
"We were waiting for you," said Key; "jump in, old man."
Although he had little idea where he should jump, Evan plunged, like a
reckless diver, and fought his way through the previous day's work as
best he could. Bill took advantage of a strip of smooth sailing to
steal away and have a smoke in the basement. Soon Key found Evan
hesitating over the work, and hollered impatiently:
"Hang that man Watson, where is he?"
Stimulated by the slang Evan made a great effort to qualify. Key
noticed his earnestness, and softened.
"I beg pardon, old chap," he said, "you'll be all right in a few days."
Thereafter they were good friends. Whenever Evan wanted to know
anything he went to the little grey-haired discount clerk and had it
explained.
The day after his off-day Robb was on duty, working away silently and
morosely. During the slight hill that marked the noon-hour he walked
back to the cash-book desk to see Evan. His coming was welcome, for
the third teller had just dumped twenty-odd sterling draft requisitions
into the cash-book dish.
"Heavens!" said Robb, "they certainly load you down with work, Nelson.
Have you eaten lunch yet?"
"No, I forgot to buy one when the kid was in." He didn't say he had
also missed breakfast.
"Send out and get something," said Robb; "I'll make out these drafts
for you. This isn't work for the cash book, anyway. I don't see why
in ---- they want to kill a man."
Robb's face was grey. He ground his teeth as he ripped the first draft
from the pad. As he worked he talked to Evan, who was swallowing dry
slices of bread with mustard and stray ligaments of gristle sandwiched
between.
"Nelson," he said, "how would you like to come up and room with me?"
Evan's eyes opened with interest.
"Fine," he replied, "if it wouldn't cost too much."
"How much salary do you draw?"
"Three fifty."
Robb turned and gazed at his young friend.
"By G--!" he cried, "that's a crime. I hope when I die that they send
me where I can see the torment of bank officials!"
The elder man's face was paler. The alcohol was not yet entirely out
of his system. He trembled slightly after delivering so vehement a
remark. Evan knew then--or thought he knew--how deeply Robb hated the
bank.
"What would board cost me up there, Mr. Robb?" he asked.
The ex-manager thought for a moment.
"I pay seven dollars," he said, "but I can get you in for a month on
about four, I think. By that time you will have found another place."
"That will suit me," said Evan; "I'll still have three dollars a week
to live on."
Robb's lip curled, and he made a blot over an "i" instead of a dot; but
he offered no comment.
"Come up for supper to-night," he invited, "and I'll show you the room.
You might as well move right in, and make a couple of days' hotel
expenses out of the bank."
Hurrying through the ordeal called "lunch," in order to let Robb back
to his liability, Evan took the Sterling book and figured out exchange.
"Where did you learn that?" asked Robb, watching him do the first draft.
"Watson showed me last night," replied Evan; "we never issued them in
the country."
"And they're giving you seven dollars a week. Do you know what this
post is worth, Evan? Fifteen hundred dollars a year!"
The figure dazed Evan. He could not conceive of his being worth such a
fabulous amount to any corporation.
"It's just as difficult as my job," continued Robb. "There's no
difference between one post and another--except in the amount of work
done, of energy wasted. It's all a matter of getting into a rut and
plugging along there, like a plowman. A fellow needs certain
qualifications like accuracy, speed, and a rhinoceros' constitution;
but what is there to it, from the standpoint of prospects?
Nothing--except work. I began in this very office twenty-five years
ago. In two years I was almost as capable of handling the liability as
I am now. All I needed was a little practice. I'm just where I
started. I've been going round in a circle. That's banking! Do you
think for a holy minute that if I was young again I'd give myself
another twenty-five-year sentence? Great Heaven! what wouldn't I give
to be back at your age? You may flatter yourself with the notion that
you're going to have something nice handed to you some day. Well,
you'll get it handed to you, all right, but not in a silver salver.
You'll get it where the chicken got the a-x-e; you'll get it with the
bank guillotine. You're now doing thirty dollars worth of work each
week at a salary of seven dollars. What guarantee have you that the
bank will ever change its policy toward you? If they tie a can on you
to-day, it will be a tin pail to-morrow and a milk-can the next day.
Haven't they done it to me, to Willis, to Key, to Levison and a hundred
others? My boy, they don't give a fig for you."
So saying, Sam Robb humped his big shoulders and slouched up to his
desk, there to bury his head in a gigantic ledger for the balance of
the day.
Evan was troubled. He still believed that Robb was exaggerating; had
not the ex-manager brought upon himself most of his failure? Evan had
heard that pet charge made against disgruntled clerks, and it came to
his mind automatically. Still, he had evidence of Robb's faithfulness
both at Mt. Alban and here in the city branch, and--he was troubled.
To Evan's surprise, mail from the north brought the cheque Penton had
promised to hold in the cash for a week. Not having checked out of his
hotel yet, he had not submitted an expense account to Toronto office,
and consequently had no funds.
The accountant brought the cheque to Nelson.
"Don't you know that floating cheques is against the rules?" he said,
menacingly.
"Yes, sir, but Mr. Penton promised to hold it for me. Besides--"
"That makes no difference," returned Charon, impatiently, "this sort of
thing has got to stop."
Evan tried to get a word in, but the accountant, declaring he had no
time for parleying, turned away with: "We'll hold it over till
to-morrow."
Had Penton tried to get the ex-teller "in bad" by sending the cheque so
soon? It would, thought Nelson, be perfectly in harmony with the
Banfield manager's knavery. Probably Henty had quit, suddenly; and,
angered, Penton had sought revenge on Henty's old associate. However,
there was no harm done, thought Evan; and he dismissed the matter from
his mind--the cash book was load enough.
The cash book was, in fact, more than enough of a load, at first. On
the second day of Evan's city experience, about six o'clock, Robb came
around and asked him how he was progressing.
"I'm all balled up," was the answer.
Robb grinned.
"Never mind," he said, "come on up to the house and I'll help you out
after supper. Never work--especially on a cash book--when you need
nourishment."
Unwillingly postponing work, Evan followed his old manager. He said he
knew Robb's boarding-house would suit him, so he went over to the hotel
and ordered his luggage sent up. Robb went with him; and, finding a
mistake of one dollar in the hotel bill, called the clerk down without
blinking. Evan thought he would like to be able to do that. He was
going to learn the art away out in Saskatchewan.
Robb's lodging suited his young friend perfectly. It was quite
central, just a nice walk from the bank. After dinner the two of them
sat in the living-room, smoking.
"This is going to feel like home to me," said Evan. "I don't see how
they can put up board like this for four dollars."
"Well, it will only last a month," replied Robb, and whispered: "Don't
tell anybody you're getting it so cheap; that's a secret between us and
Mrs. Greig."
"All right," Nelson promised.
Mrs. Greig played on the piano, at Robb's request, after the other
boarders had dispersed. She was a young widow, good-looking and
clever. Robb seemed to like her.
Before long Evan showed signs of restlessness.
"I'll go on down, Mr. Robb," he said, "you can come later, if you wish."
Robb consented. Mrs. Greig's music seemed more suited to a man of
forty-two than to one of nineteen, anyway. But the elder clerk was not
long in putting in an appearance at the bank. He found the cash-book
man in a state of siege. Evan was, in fact, hemmed in on all sides by
warlike figures, obstinate and invincible.
Several clerks were working at "night jobs." They looked sideways at
Robb and Nelson working with their heads together over at the cash-book
desk.
"Sam's taken a notion to Banfield, I guess," said Marks, who was still
out in the morning's clearing.
"You boneheaded mutt!" cried Cantel, glaring at his desk-mate.
"What's the matter with you--did you ever see an ex-manager come back
to help the cash-book before? Next time we have to tick off we'll
press him into our service."
"Get wise," returned Cantel, "or I'll press your mitts into service.
Do you see that?"
He held up a cheque, which at first glance looked like $3.74. Its
resemblance to that amount had caused all the trouble: the cheque was
for $37.40.
"Every cent of our difference!" exclaimed Marks. "By heck, let's all
go out and celebrate."
Accepting his suggestion as an invitation, the other "C" man, a junior,
and a "supplementary" man banged their books shut and accompanied Marks
to the nearest hotel. "Celebrating" is a favorite pastime of bankboys.
Every balance found, every inspection finished, almost anything
accomplished, requires a celebration. It is easy to get in the swim,
and then one makes a fish of himself.
Sam Robb, the ex-manager, was almost as much at sea over the cash-book
as Nelson was; but he had been a clerk longer than the young man, and
he plodded ahead methodically, without that nervous anxiety that gets
young clerks "up in the air." Robb's frequent remarks rendered the
strain less intense to Evan; he worked with greater freedom and
assurance than he would have done alone. Between them they struck a
balance within a reasonable time, and locking up the vault went out to
the street.
The lights of Yonge Street, the city environment, the pleasant April
air, all revived Evan's spirits. For a while he forgot that he was a
bankclerk living in danger of concussion of the brain.
"Let's take in a picture show," he suggested, with interest.
Robb smiled, and agreed. They entered a picture house called "The
Rand," in the middle of a film (who ever entered at any other time?).
It was one of a popular series of crooked clerk pictures then going the
rounds; one of those in which some fellow robs the till and somebody
else gets the blame: a woman comes on the screen, snatches her heart
out of the villain's hands, and throws herself on the hero's neck.
"I wonder if those things ever really happen," said Evan, when they
were on the street again.
"Sure," said Robb. "There isn't anything that can't happen--to a
clerk."
Evan laughed. He was now chumming with his old manager; why not be
more familiar and confiding?
"You don't think much of a clerical job, do you?" he ventured.
Robb regarded him seriously and with a certain amount of satisfaction.
"No, Evan," he replied, "I do not. I've seen too much of this
dependent life. That's what a clerk's life is--dependent. He never
knows the day or the hour when the axe will fall. Besides being in
constant suspense, he is in danger of actually losing his job, any day.
Now, life is too short to spend in dread of losing a position. If I
were a young man again I would build on a solid foundation. As it is
all I know is the bank. It would keep me guessing, after all these
years of banking, to make my present salary anywhere else; and yet I'm
not sure, at that, that I will always remain in the business."
They were walking up University Avenue.
"I'm awfully glad to get staying with you," said Evan, suddenly. "I
believe I would have had a renewal of homesickness down in that hotel."
"It's a pleasure for me to have you, old man," returned Robb. "That
homesickness you speak of is bad, while it lasts. It doesn't last
long, though. When you come to my time of life and realize that you
have had a different kind of lonesomeness for years and years, you'll
begin to think ordinary homesickness wasn't in it."
The ice was broken: Evan asked a question he had long wanted to ask:
"Why didn't you ever marry, Mr. Robb?"
The old bankclerk showed neither annoyance nor surprise. One does not
mind being asked a frank personal question out of friendship.
"It was like this," said Robb, unhesitatingly, "I couldn't afford it
until I was thirty. I mean to say, the bank wouldn't let me afford it
till then. The girl was from my home town, down in Quebec. We wrote
to each other for two or three years, but I got discouraged and quit.
I figured that it wasn't fair to spoil her chances; it isn't right for
a man to do it. There were lots of men as good as I that she could
care for, and what right had I to ask her to wait until she was on the
shelf? It happened she married a bank man after all, but he was one of
those guys with a pull; he drew two hundred dollar increases and that
sort of thing. Well, when a fellow gives up in the love-game he
usually begins to booze or do something just as danged foolish.
Although I might have known she could not wait for me, still it hurt to
have her marry somebody else--especially a bank man--and it took me
years to get over it. And," he seemed to breathe the memory of it away
in a sigh, "you'll find scores and scores of men in the bank in my fix
exactly."[1]
Robb's reference to drink reminded Evan that he had not told him about
Penton and the Banfield trouble. Why not tell him? As they sat before
a grate fire he related the tale of the silver, of Penton's strange
actions, and of the inspection.
"Take it from me," said Robb, when the story was finished, "you're a
dead one in the bank's eyes from now on. To-morrow the increases come
out. Just watch yourself get a lemon. Penton has blackballed you to
Castle. Why couldn't it have been Inspector Ward?--he's a good head.
I'll bet they give you a measly fifty to-morrow, Evan."
"In that case I'd be justified in quitting the bank, wouldn't I?"
Robb snorted.
"If you don't quit, increase or no increase, you're crazy. If I get
you a job somewhere else in town, will you leave the bank?"
"Perhaps," said Evan; "but I'm low in energy now, you know, and I doubt
if I would make much of a hit with a strange man on a new line of work."
"If you're feeling like that you'd better go on a farm for the summer
and get your feet on solid earth."
The following morning Nelson put in his expense account covering cost
of moving from Banfield to Toronto. He did not charge the bank with
three days at a hotel, as he might have done. They might be unfair to
him, but at least he would be honest with them. Robb saw the debit
slip among the charges vouchers lying in the cash-book dish. He walked
over to the cash-book man.
"You're hopeless, Evan," he said. "You deserve to be fired."
"What's the matter?" asked Key, who was always nosing around in his
good-natured way, trying to find things out and dig clerks out.
Robb told him about the expense voucher.
"God bless the bank," said Key; "it seems to have a faculty for picking
honest boys. I wish a few professional crooks or gunmen would slip one
over on them occasionally."
Evan smiled and began to say something, when Castle came sailing along
and cried, in his high voice:
"It's pretty near time, Nelson, that you knew how to draw a sterling
draft. I don't want to have to cross one of these again."
One draft out of fourteen had escaped being red-inked. It was that
gigantic omission that brought Castle back from the front of the
office. He loved to show authority.
Robb and Key looked at one another, the assistant accountant gone, then
burst out laughing simultaneously. Evan joined them.
"There you are," said Robb, turning to the cash-book man; "that's the
kind of things the bank soaks you for. They've got a pick against you,
Nelson. I have a hunch you and I'll be left out on the increases."
The ex-manager's hunch was not quite strong enough. Evan received an
increase of $50, bringing his salary up to $400 per year, less
guarantee premiums. Robb was cut down from $1,400 to $1,250, "until he
manifested a willingness to accept what head office considered to his
interests."
Robb had refused, for personal reasons, to accept an appointment to a
place of ostracism, and that, along with the ill-will of the accountant
and assistant-accountant of Toronto, was sufficient, in the eyes of
head office, to justify the cutting down of his salary $150. It had
been reduced $750 when he was first sent to Toronto--after more than
twenty years' faithful service.
Sam Robb, that night at dinner, looked like a man who had been through
a severe illness. He ate little.
"They want me to resign, Evan," he said gutturally, "or they wouldn't
have chopped me again. A nice way of squeezing a fellow out, eh?"
"What are you going to do about it?" asked Evan.
"Get drunk," said Robb.
He did, too.
[1] The writer of this book took statistics in Toronto among eight of
the leading banks in the summer of 1912, and found that out of 450
clerks 13.1 per cent. were over thirty, and 13.0 per cent. were
married. Among those 450 bankclerks at least, a man had to be thirty
before he could afford marriage.