When a farmer turns a strange cow into his herd she has to undergo a
competitive examination. The fighter of the flock, sometimes a
reckless-looking creature with one horn turned down as a result of
former battles, walks directly up to the stranger, as in duty bound. The
duel is in good form and preceded by ceremonious bowing on both sides;
one finds here the origin of that scrape with the foot which was an
essential part of all obeisance before the frosty perpendicular English
style came in. Politeness over, the two brutes lock horns, and there is
a trial of strength, weight, and bovine persistency; let the one that
first gives ground look out for a thrust in the ribs! But once the
newcomer has settled her relative social standing and knows which of her
fellows are to have the _pas_ of her at the hayrick and the
watering-place, and which she in turn may safely bully, all is peace in
the pasture.
Something like this takes place in our social herds. In every
government, cabinet, party, or deliberative body there is the
preliminary set-to until it is discovered who, by one means or another,
can push the hardest. Not only in governments and political bodies but
in every corporation, club, Dorcas society, base-ball league, church,
and grocery store, the superficial observer sees what appears to be
harmony and even brotherly unity; it is only the result of preliminary
pushing matches by which the equilibrium of offensive and defensive
qualities has been ascertained. And much that passes for domestic
harmony is nothing but a prudent acquiescence in an arrangement based on
relative powers of annoyance.
This long preamble goeth to show that if the Bank of Manhadoes had its
rivalries it was not singular. In the light of the general principles we
have evoked, the elbowings among the officers of the bank are lifted
into the dignity of instances, examples, phenomena illustrating human
nature and human history. More far-reaching than human nature, they are
offshoots of the great struggle for existence, which, as we moderns have
had the felicity to discover, gives rise to the survival of the tough
and the domination of the pugnacious--the annihilation of the tender and
the subjugation of the sensitive.
When Millard entered the bank there existed a conflict in the board of
directors, and a division of opinion extending to the stockholders,
between those who sustained and those who opposed the policy of the
Masters-Farnsworth administration. But the administration proved
fortunate and successful to such a degree that the opposition and
rivalry presently died away or lost hope. Once the opposition to the two
managers had disappeared, the lack of adjustment between the president
and cashier became more pronounced. Farnsworth was the victim of a
chronic asthma, and he was as ambitious as he was restless. The wan
little man was untiring in his exertions because the trouble he had to
get breath left him no temptation to repose. He contrived to find vent
for his uneasiness by communicating a great deal of it to others.
Masters, the president, was a man of sixty-five, with neither disease
nor ambition preying on his vitals. For a long while he allowed
Farnsworth to have his way in most things, knowing that if one entered
into contention with Farnsworth there was no hope of ever making an end
of it except by death or surrender. That which was decided yesterday
against Farnsworth was sure to be reopened this morning; and though
finally settled again to-day, it was all to be gone over to-morrow; nor
would it be nearer to an adjustment next week. Compromise did no good:
Farnsworth accepted your concession to-day, and then higgled you to
split the difference on the remainder to-morrow, until you had so small
a dividend left that it was not worth holding to.
But in dealing with a man like Masters it was possible to carry the
policy of grand worry too far. When at length this rather phlegmatic man
made up his mind that Farnsworth was systematically bullying him--a
conclusion that Mrs. Masters helped him to reach--he became the very
granite of obstinacy, offering a quiet but unyielding resistance to the
cashier's aggressiveness. But an ease-loving man could not keep up this
sort of fight forever. Masters knew this as well as any one, and he
therefore felt the need of some buffer between him and his associate.
There were two positions contemplated in the organization of the bank
that had never yet been filled. One was that of vice-president, the
other that of assistant cashier. By filling the assistant cashier's
place with an active, aggressive man, Masters might secure an ally who
could attack Farnsworth on the other flank. But in doing that he would
have to disappoint Millard, who was steadily growing in value to the
bank, but who, from habitual subordination to Farnsworth, and the
natural courtesy of his disposition, could not be depended on to offer
much resistance. To introduce a stranger would be to disturb the status
quo, and the first maxim in the conduct of institutions is to avoid
violent changes. Once the molecules of an organization are set into
unusual vibration it is hard to foretell what new combinations they may
form. And your practical man dislikes, of all things, to invite the
unforeseen and the incalculable.
The election of a vice-president would bring a new man into the bank
over the head of Farnsworth, but it would also produce a disturbance
from which Masters felt a shrinking natural to an experienced and
conservative administrator. Moreover, there was no one connected with
the direction, or even holding stock in the bank, suitable to be put
over Farnsworth. Unless, indeed, it were thought best to bring Hilbrough
from Brooklyn. To introduce so forceful a man as Hilbrough into the
management would certainly be a great thing for the bank, and it would
not fail to put an end to the domination of Farnsworth. But Masters
reflected that it might equally reduce his own importance. And with all
his irritation against Farnsworth the president disliked to deal him too
severe a blow.
If the matter had been left to Mrs. Masters, there would have been no
relentings. In her opinion Farnsworth ought to be put out. Aren't you
president, Mr. Masters? Why don't you _be_ president, then? Don't like
to be too hard on him? That's just like you. I'd just put him out, and
there'd be an end of his fussiness once for all. _Of course_ you _could_
if you set about it. You are always saying that you don't like to let
feeling interfere with business. But I wouldn't stand Farnsworth--little
shrimp!--setting up to run a bank. Ill? Well, he ought to be; makes
himself ill meddling with other people. He'd be better if he didn't
worry about what doesn't belong to him. I'd give him rest. It's all well
enough to sneer at a woman's notion of business, but the bank would be
better off if you had entire control of it. The directors know that,
they _must_ know it; they are not blind.
There were no half-tones in Mrs. Master's judgment; everything was
painted in coal blacks or glittering whites. She saw no mediums in
character; he who was not good in every particular was capable of most
sorts of deviltry, in her opinion.
This antagonism between the president and the cashier did not reach its
acute stage until Millard had been in the bank for more than three
years. Millard had made his way in the estimation of the directors in
part by his ever-widening acquaintance with people of importance. His
social connections enabled him to be of service to many men whose
good-will was beneficial to the bank, and he was a ready directory to
financial and family relationships, and to the business history and
standing of those with whom the bank had dealings. Add to these
advantages his considerable holdings of the bank's stock, and it is easy
to comprehend how in spite of his youth he had come to stand next to
Masters and Farnsworth. The dissensions between these two were
disagreeable to one who had a decided preference for quietude and
placidity of manners; but he kept aloof from their quarrel, though he
must have had private grievances against a superior so pragmatical as
Farnsworth.
A sort of magnanimity was mingled with craft in Masters's constitution,
and, besides, he much preferred the road that was likely to give him the
fewest jolts. The natural tendency of his irritation was to die away.
This would have been the result in spite of the spur that Mrs. Masters
supplied--applied, rather--if Farnsworth could have been content to let
things take their natural course; but he could not abide to let anything
go its natural way: he would have attempted a readjustment of the
relations between the moon and tides if he had thought himself favorably
situated for puttering in such matters. The temporary obstruction which
Masters offered to his fussy willfulness seemed to the cashier an
outrage hard to be borne. After he had taken so many tedious years to
establish his ascendancy in nine-tenths of the bank's affairs it was
sheer impertinence in Masters to wish to have any considerable share in
the management. The backset to his ambition made him more sleepless than
ever, bringing on frequent attacks of asthma. He lost interest even in
the dinner parties, with a business squint, that he had been so fond of
giving. Mrs. Farnsworth was under the frequent necessity of holding a
platter of burning stramonium under his nose to subdue the paroxysms of
wheezing that threatened to cut short his existence. Along with the
smoke of the stramonium she was wont to administer a soothing smudge of
good advice, beseeching him not to worry about things, though she knew
perfectly that he would never cease to worry about things so long as his
attenuated breath was not wholly turned off. She urged him to make
Masters do his share of the work, and to take a vacation himself, or to
resign outright, so as to spend his winters in Jacksonville. But every
new paroxysm brought to Farnsworth a fresh access of resentment against
Masters, whom he regarded as the source of all his woes. In his wakeful
nights he planned a march on the very lines that Masters had proposed.
He would get Millard made assistant cashier, and then have himself
advanced to vice-president, with Millard, or some one on whom he could
count more surely, for cashier. He proposed nothing less than to force
the president out of all active control, and, if possible, to compel him
to resign. No qualms of magnanimity disturbed this deoxygenated man. It
was high time for Masters to resign, if for no other reason than that
Farnsworth might occupy the private office. This inner office was a
badge of Masters's superiority not to be endured.
There was one director, Meadows, whom Farnsworth lighted on as a
convenient agent in his intrigue. Meadows had belonged to the old
opposition which had resisted both the president and cashier. He was
suspected of a desire to make a place for his brother, who had been
cashier of a bank that had failed, and who had broken in nerve force
when the bank broke. Farnsworth, who rode about in a coupe to save his
breath for business and contention, drove up in front of Meadows's shop
one morning at half-past nine, and made his way back among chandeliers
of many patterns in incongruous juxtaposition, punctuated with wall
burners and table argands. In the private office at the back he found
Meadows opening his letters. He was a round-jawed man with blue eyes, an
iron-oxide complexion, stiff, short, rusty hair, red-yellow
side-whiskers, an upturned nose, and a shorn chin, habitually thrust
forward. Once seated and his wind recovered, Farnsworth complained at
some length that he found it hard to carry all the responsibility of the
bank without adequate assistance.
"You ought to have an experienced assistant," said Meadows. This was the
first occasion on which any officer of the bank had shown his good sense
by consulting Meadows, and he was on that account the more disposed to
encourage Farnsworth.
"If, now," said Farnsworth, "I could have as good a man as they say your
brother is, I would be better fixed. But an experienced man like your
brother would not take the place of assistant cashier."
Meadows was not so sure that his brother would refuse any place, but he
thought it better not to say anything in reply. Farnsworth, who had no
desire to take Meadows's brother unless he should be driven to it, saw
the dangerous opening he had left. He therefore proceeded, as soon as
he could get breath:
"Besides, the assistant's place belongs naturally to young Millard, and
he would have influence enough to defeat anybody else who might be
proposed. He is a good fellow, but he can't take responsibility. If
Masters were not the cold-blooded man he is, he would have made Millard
assistant cashier long ago, and advanced me to be vice-president."
"And then you would want some good man for cashier," said Meadows.
"Precisely," said Farnsworth; "that is just it."
"I think we can do that with or without Masters," said Meadows, turning
his head to one side with a quiet air of defiance. He was only too well
pleased to renew his fight against Masters with Farnsworth for ally. The
question of his brother's appointment was after all an auxiliary one; he
loved faction and opposition pure and simple.
"I am sure we can," said Farnsworth. "Of course my hand must not appear.
But if a motion were to be made to advance both Millard and me one step,
I don't think Masters would dare oppose it."
"I'll make the motion," said Meadows, with something like a sniff, as
though, like Job's war-horse, he smelled the battle and liked the odor.
In taking leave Farnsworth told Meadows that he had not yet spoken to
Millard about the matter, and he thought it not best to mention it to
him before the meeting. But the one thing that rendered Meadows
tolerably innocuous was that he never could co-operate with an ally,
even in factious opposition, without getting up a new faction within the
first, and so fomenting subdivisions as long as there were two to
divide. The moment Farnsworth had left him he began to reflect
suspiciously that the cashier intended to tell Millard himself, and so
take the entire credit of the promotion. This would leave Farnsworth
free to neglect Meadows's brother. Meadows, therefore, resolved to tell
Millard in advance and thus put the latter under obligation to further
his brother's interest. He gave himself great credit for a device by
which he would play Farnsworth against Masters and then head off
Farnsworth with Millard. Farnsworth wished to use him to pull some
rather hot chestnuts out of the fire, and he chuckled to think that he
had arranged to secure his own share of the nuts first.
With this profound scheme in his head, Meadows contrived to encounter
Millard at luncheon, an encounter which the latter usually took some
pains to avoid, for Millard was fastidious in eating as in everything
else and he disliked to see Meadows at the table. Not that the latter
did not know the use of fork and napkin, but he assaulted his food with
a ferocity that, as Millard once remarked, "lent too much support to the
Darwinian hypothesis."
On the day of his conversation with Farnsworth, Meadows bore down on the
table where Millard sat alone, disjointing a partridge.
"Goo' morning," he said, abruptly seating himself on the rail of the
chair opposite to Millard, and beckoning impatiently to a waiter, who
responded but languidly, knowing that Meadows was opposed to the tip
system from both principle and interest.
When he had given his order and then, as usual, called back the waiter
as he was going out the door, waving his hand at him and uttering a
"H-i-s-t, waitah!" to tell him that he did not want his meat so fat as
it had been the last time, he gave his attention to Millard and
introduced the subject of the approaching meeting of the directors.
"Why doesn't old Rip Van Winkle wake up?" said Meadows. "Why doesn't he
make you assistant cashier? I'm sure you deserve it."
"Well, now, if you put it that way, Mr. Meadows, and leave it to me, I
will say candidly that I suppose the real reason for not promoting me is
that Mr. Masters, being a man of sound judgment, feels that he can not
do me justice under the circumstances. If I had my deserts I'd be
president of the bank; but it would be too much to ask a gentleman at
Mr. Masters's time of life to move out of his little office just to make
room for a deserving young man."
"You may joke, but you know that Masters is jealous. Why doesn't he
promote Farnsworth to be vice-president? You know that Farnsworth really
runs the bank."
"It isn't his fault if he doesn't," said Millard in a half-whisper.
"I believe that if I made a move to advance both you and Farnsworth it
could be carried." Meadows looked inquiringly at his companion.
"What would become of the cashiership?" asked Millard. "I suppose we
could divide that between us." "Won't you try a glass of Moselle?" And
he passed the bottle to Meadows, who poured out a glass of it--he never
declined wine when some one else paid for it--while Millard kept on
talking to keep from saying anything. "I like to drink the health of any
man who proposes to increase my salary, Mr. Meadows." Millard observed
with disgust that the bank director drank off the wine at a gulp as he
might have taken any vulgar claret, with an evident lack of
appreciation. Millard himself was a light drinker; nothing but the
delicate flavor of good wine could make drinking tolerable to him. The
mind of Meadows, however, was intent on the subject under discussion.
"The cashiership," he said, "could either be filled by some experienced
man or it might be left vacant for a while."
Millard saw a vision of Meadows, the discouraged brother, stepping in
over his head.
"If a cashier should be put in now," said Meadows, "it would end
presently in old Rip Van Winkle's resigning, and then an advance along
the whole line would move you up once more." Meadows thought that this
sop would reconcile Millard to having his brother interpolated above
him.
"That's a good plan," said Millard, using his finger-bowl; "and then if
Mr. Farnsworth would only be kind enough to die in one of his attacks,
and the other man should get rich by speculation and retire, I'd come
to be president at last. That is the only place suited to a modest and
worthy young man like myself."
This fencing annoyed Meadows, who was by this time salting and peppering
his roast beef, glaring at it the while like a boa-constrictor
contemplating a fresh victim in anticipation of the joys of deglutition.
Millard saw the importance of letting Masters know about this new move,
and feared that Meadows would attempt to put him under bonds of secrecy.
So, as he rose to go, like a prairie traveler protecting himself by
back-firing, he said:
"If you're really serious in this matter, Mr. Meadows, I suppose you'll
take pains not to have it generally known. For one thing, if you won't
tell anybody else, I'll promise you not to tell my wife."
"And if Farnsworth speaks to you about it," said Meadows, "don't tell
him that I have said anything to you. He wanted to tell you himself."
"I'll not let him know that you said anything about it."
And with that Millard went out. The bait of the assistant cashiership
was not tempting enough to draw him into this intrigue. The greater part
of his capital was in the bank, and he knew that the withdrawal of
Masters would be a misfortune to him. Finding that Farnsworth was out,
Millard went to the president's room under color of showing him a letter
of importance. A man of dignity doesn't like to seem to bear tales with
malice prepense. When he was about to leave Millard said:
"I hear that a motion is to be made looking to changes in the personnel
of the bank."
The president was a little startled; his first impression from this
remark being that somehow Millard had got wind of the plans he had
revolved and then discarded.
"What do you hear?" he said, in his usual non-committal way.
"Nothing very definite, but something that leads me to think that Mr.
Farnsworth would like to be vice-president and that Meadows would
consent to have his brother take the cashiership."
"No doubt, no doubt," said Mr. Masters, smiling. It was his habit to
smile when he felt the impulse to frown. He did not like to seem
ignorant of anything going on in the bank, so he said no more to
Millard, but let the conversation drop. He presently regretted this, and
by the time Millard had reached his desk he was recalled.
"You understand that Mr. Farnsworth and Meadows are acting in concert?"
"I have reason to think so."
"Do you think it would be wise to make Mr. Farnsworth vice-president?"
Millard turned the palms of his hands upward and shrugged his shoulders.
He made no other reply than to add, "You know him as well as I do."
"Who would be a good man for the place?"
"Have you thought of Hilbrough?"
"Yes, he would bring real strength to the bank; and, Mr. Millard, there
is one promotion I have long had in mind," said the president. "You
ought to be made assistant cashier, with a considerably larger salary
than you have been getting."
Millard made a slight bow. "I'm sure you don't expect me to offer
serious opposition to that proposal." Then he could not refrain from
adding, "I believe Mr. Farnsworth and Meadows have also reached that
conclusion."
There was no opportunity to reply to this; Farnsworth was heard wheezing
outside the door.
Masters thought rapidly that afternoon. He admitted to himself, as he
had hardly done before, that he was growing old and that a successful
bank ought to have some more vigorous man than he in its management;
some man of ideas more liberal than Farnsworth's, and of more age and
experience than this young Millard. His mind turned to Hilbrough, the
real-estate agent in Montague Street, Brooklyn. First a poor clerk, then
a small collector of tenement-house rents, then a prosperous real-estate
agent and operator on his own account, he had come by shrewd investment
to be a rich man. He was accustomed to make call loans to a large amount
on collateral security, and his business was even now almost that of a
private banker. A director in the Bank of Manhadoes from its beginning
and one of its largest stockholders, he was the most eligible man to
succeed Masters in the active management of its affairs, and the only
man whose election once proposed would certainly command the support of
the directors against the scheme of Farnsworth. He was the one possible
man who would prove quite too large for Farnsworth's domineering. It
was with a pang that Masters reflected that he too would be effaced in a
measure by the advent of a man so vital as Warren Hilbrough; but there
was for him only the choice between being effaced by Hilbrough's
superior personality and being officially put out of the way by
Farnsworth's process of slow torture. He saw, too, that a bank with four
high-grade officers would have a more stable official equilibrium than
one where the power is shared between two. The head of such an
institution is sheltered from adverse intrigues by the counterpoise of
the several officers to one another.
If Masters had needed any stimulus to his resolution to contravene the
ambitious plans of the cashier, Mrs. Masters would have supplied it.
When she heard of Farnsworth's scheme, she raised again her old cry of
_Carthago delenda est_, Farnsworth must be put out. In her opinion
nothing else would meet the requirement of poetic justice; but she
despaired of persuading Masters to a measure so extreme. It was always
the way. Mr. Masters was too meek for anything; he would let people run
over him.
But Masters had no notion of being run over. He went to the office every
day, and from the office he went to his country-place in New Jersey
every afternoon. There was nothing in his actions to excite the
suspicion of the cashier, who could not know that negotiations with
Hilbrough, and the private submission of the proposition to certain
directors, had all been intrusted to the tact of Charley Millard. It was
rather hard on Millard, too; for though he enjoyed his success in an
undertaking so delicate, he regretted two dinner parties and one
desirable reception that he was compelled to forego in order to carry on
his negotiations out of bank hours.
The day before the directors met, Farnsworth confided to Millard his
intention to have him made assistant cashier. Millard said that if Mr.
Masters and the directors should agree to that he would be very well
pleased. Considering his evident loyalty to Masters, Farnsworth did not
think it wise to tell Millard anything further.
In the board of directors Meadows sat with a more than usually defiant
face--with a face which showed premonitions of exultation. Farnsworth
felt sure of his game, but he found breathing so laborious that he did
not show any emotion. Masters thought it best to soften the humiliation
of his associate as much as possible by forestalling his proposition. So
at the first moment he suggested to the directors that the bank needed
new force, on account both of his own advancing years and of Mr.
Farnsworth's ill-health, much aggravated by his excessive industry. He
therefore proposed to have Mr. Hilbrough made vice-president with the
same salary as that paid to the president, to add a thousand to the
cashier's salary, and to promote Mr. Millard to be assistant cashier on
a salary of five thousand a year. He said that the prosperity of the
bank justified the increased expense, and that the money would be well
invested.
Meadows opposed this plan as extravagant. He favored the promotion of
Mr. Millard, and the promotion of Mr. Farnsworth to be vice-president,
leaving the cashiership vacant for a while. But the directors,
accustomed to follow the lead of Masters and Hilbrough, and suspicious
of Meadows as habitually factious, voted the president's proposition.
Farnsworth went home and to bed. Then he asked for a vacation and went
South. The bank officers sent him a handsome bouquet when he sailed away
on the Savannah steamer; for commerce by the very rudeness of its
encounters makes men forgiving. In business it is unprofitable to
cherish animosities, and contact with a great variety of character makes
business men usually more tolerant than men of secluded lives.
Farnsworth, for his part, was as pleased as a child might have been with
the attention paid him on his departure, and Mrs. Farnsworth was
delighted that her husband had consented to take rest, and "make the
others do their share of the work."