Miraculous as it seemed to Evan, the ledgers were finally made to balance. Porter lengthened his stride a foot and walked once more well back on his heels—just as if his bad work had not been responsible for a three days' dizzy mixup. A certain Saturday afternoon came round.
"I guess we can do without you till Monday noon," said the manager, over Nelson's shoulder, as the latter pondered over an unwritten money-order.
It was welcome news to Evan. He had come to feel, however, that his presence was indispensable to the well-being of the collection register and other books of record. It appeared to him that in one afternoon and a forenoon the hand of any other but himself must irrevocably "ball" the junior post.
"You mean you don't want me to drive back Sunday night?" he asked Mr. Robb, doubtingly.
"That's what. You'd better take all the holidays you can get now, Nelson; you'll be tied tighter than wax-end before you're in the business long."
Evan seemed still perplexed.
"Who'll take out the drafts Monday morning, Mr. Robb?" he asked, seriously.
The manager looked at him with an expression half humor and half pity.
"Do you suppose," he said with a grin, "that the merchants will be very badly offended at not getting these bills at the earliest moment?"
Evan smiled. Robb still stood beside him.
"Evan! ....."
He looked up, surprised to hear himself addressed so familiarly by the manager; but the latter was speaking:
".... Remember this: extra holidays never save you labor. The work is always waiting for your return, piling up through every hour of your pleasure."
Mr. Robb sighed and walked into his office, leaving the new junior to absorb another impression. The words spoken did impress Nelson. He sat gazing before him at the wall, wondering why the manager was so friendly toward him and so cynical on matters of business. From looking at nothingness his eyes gradually focused on a calendar, and at an "X" mark in pencil thereon. The mark indicated the day when he would make a trip home to tell about "the world": that day had come.
With a smile he laid aside the money-order he had been examining and began straightening up his desk, whistling as he did so. Castle, out in his cash, was annoyed.
"Will you kindly stop that whistling," he commanded in his high tones.
"Excuse me," said the junior quickly, "I wasn't thinking."
"Well you want to think," returned Castle.
"No you don't," called Watson; "you'll get h—l if you dare to think. As the hymn says, 'Trust and obey'—but for heaven's sake don't think. NowIthink—"
"Shut up, Bill," interposed Perry, "I've been up this column twice already."
Bill opened his eyes and leered down on the savings man.
"Look who's here," he said, facetiously. "Why, it's the new ledger keeper; the great-grandson of Burroughs, and inventor of the new system of adding—the system which says: Go up a column three times and if the totals agree there is something wrong; mistrust them; get the other man to add it."
Porter scowled. Castle could scarcely repress a smile, but he dug his nose into a bunch of dirty money, and managed to turn his thoughts to microbes and other sober subjects.
Evan, his grip packed, stood apologetically behind the cage, waiting for the teller to turn around.
"What doyouwant?" said Castle.
"Cash this cheque, will you, please?"
A smile wavered on Watson's lip. Porter felt in his pockets. The teller grinned.
"Hardly worth while keeping that in an account," he said, with the intention of joking. It was a wonder, too, for he seldom tried to be funny with inferiors.
"I wouldn't have even that," replied Evan, "if it weren't for the account."
Bill haw-hawed.
"You're no humorist, Castle," he said.
The teller was red and white in an instant. The ledger keeper never had shown him any respect; he had called him Mister but a few times, and that was just after Bill had come from another branch. Castle was smaller than Watson and possessed an inferior personality. Bill was big and humorous—and reckless. It was the joy of his life to torment the teller; and yet he was not mean; he was not even obstreperous; he got along splendidly with the manager, and showed him respect.
The teller's anger exhausted itself inwardly. Evan still stood with his grip in his hand looking at the boys working behind their desks. He felt that he ought to bid them good-bye, but he did not like to do it individually, and it was almost as hard to say a general farewell.
"Good-bye," he called faintly from the front door. Castle did not raise his head. Porter and Bill lifted theirs, but only to grin. The manager stepped out of his office and extended his hand with a smile.
"Have a good time," he said, and whispered: "Monday night will do, if your mother kicks very hard."
"Thank you, Mr. Robb, I——"
"That's all right."
On the train Evan rejoiced. He thought of the sad day he had landed at the station of Mt. Alban with lonesomeness and misgivings; of the thrills of discouragement and homesickness that had tortured him for the first two weeks; of the blank explanations of "the porter," and ensuing jumbles of figures and bills; and of his first look at that bed above the vault. It all seemed to have happened at a remote period in his life—probably in the pre-existent land; even balance day, but three days past, was remote.
It was not in these seemingly ancient memories that Evan had his rejoicing, but in the realization that they were memories. As the train carried him buoyantly toward Hometon he recounted the accomplishments he had acquired in four or five weeks. He could add twice as rapidly as any high-school student in the average collegiate; he knew the collection register and diary; he could enter up a savings-bank passbook better than Perry—with a clearer hand and a much clearer comprehension; he could draw a draft, reckon dates of maturity without a calendar; and so on. But, what he prized most, he was familiar with a host of technical terms, used in the banking business the world over. And after buying his ticket and purchasing a hat-pin for his sister, Lou, he had two dollars of his own money in his pocket. That would buy up most of the ice-cream in Hometon, for one evening anyway.
Such thoughts and reflections as these kept Evan interested until the brakeman shouted "Hometon next!" Then a lofty and exulting happiness took the place of interest. He looked on the approaching spires and humble cupolas of his home town with an expression possibly similar to that of an eagle in flight over a settlement of earthy creatures. He felt a sudden loyalty for Mt. Alban, and suspected that it would be part of his professionalism to maintain the honor of his business-town in Hometon.
The bankclerk straightened his back and marched down the aisle of the train. Alfred Castle and the interest table seemed a thousand miles away. Two happy faces smiled at him from the station platform. Frankie Arling and Sister Lou ran up to him.
"Gee, but isn't he a sport?" said Lou, sweeping him in from tip to toe, and addressing herself to her companion.
"Yes, indeed," laughed Frankie, taking his raincoat from his arm, and throwing it over her own. Lou seized his suitcase.
He submitted to the hold-up with a kind of dignity; looked about him with the air of a tourist; and paid less attention to the questions of the girls than he might have done.
"The old town's just the same," he soliloquized aloud.
Lou was speaking to a passer-by and did not hear the remark. Frankie had been paying better attention. She smiled and looked into his face coyly.
"Does it seem so very long since you left, Evan?"
"Well—I don't know, Frank." He regarded her critically. Lou was attending now.
"I expected to find you with a moustache," she said.
The remark fitted so well into Frankie's thoughts it amused her very much. Both girls laughed to each other without restraint. In fact, they were not very sedate for the main street of Hometon.
Mrs. Nelson had the house as clean and cheerful as mother and a summer's day can make a home. She sat on the front verandah with the material for a pair of pyjamas on her white-aproned lap. Long before the three youngsters were within hailing distance she waved the light flannelette above her head.
Evan's kiss made the mother blush. There never had been much demonstration of affection in the family: there had been no excuse for it. But now matters were different. Evan, too, was a trifle embarrassed.
"Well, I like that," said Lou; "he never kissed me, mother!"
He caught his sister and bestowed a gentle bite on her cheek; she squirmed and would not let him away without a conventional kiss. When he had satisfied her, Lou glanced at the brother and then at Frankie.
"Someone else to be smacked," she said, stopping Frankie's flight by winding her arms around the twisting waist.
Evan was ready to turn the whole affair into a joke, and shouting "I'm game," he caught Frankie and pressed his lips to hers.
Again Mrs. Nelson blushed. So did Miss Arling.
"Gee!" cried Lou; "I just thought that's what the bank did for fellows."
Evan was thus acknowledged a regular bankclerk, and the laugh he vented was well tinctured with exultation.
Then began a series of questions and answers, recitations and interruptions, commendations and exaggerations. For two hours the mother, the son and the two wide-eyed girls listened and looked, or asked and received. The expressions Evan used puzzled them, but he shook his head deprecatingly when they asked for definitions which he knew would be unintelligible to them. He had not been talking with them long before he discovered how to interest them—by saying mysterious things. From the moment of his discovery he revelled in the clerical technical phrases that he had picked up at the Mt. Alban office, and the women justified the assertion of that circus man who said: "Humanity likes to be humbugged."
Lou, with a new and sudden affection for housework, insisted on getting the supper. Mrs. Nelson, of course, could not consent to it on this the night of her banker's return; nobody's hands but her own must lay the cloth and mix the salad. But Lou was strangely insistent, and the upshot of the competition was co-operation. Evan was left on the verandah with Frankie.
No doubt there is a time for everything. That was the time for Evan to tell how lonesome he had been.... And this is the time to make a brief sketch of Miss Arling. Her face was sweet, then it was thoughtful; her eyes were blue-green, bright. She looked not unlike Love's incarnation. She bore a strong resemblance to a baby. In short, she was—what her best friends called her—a dear.
"You don't know how I have missed you, Frank," said Evan, and when she gave him a scrutinizing look, he hurriedly added: "a fellow gets so lonesome, you know."
"Do you like the bank, Evan?" she asked, fencing.
"You bet. A fellow gets such a good insight into—things."
"You were a dandy at school," she observed seriously.
He eyed her suspiciously. He was no longer a school-boy. He repeated a remark he had heard in the office:
"If a fellow goes to school all his life he misses the education of business. That's how it is so many professional men fall down when it comes to collecting accounts."
Frankie regarded him with a smile in which considerable admiration shone. She was just a girl of seventeen.
"I suppose it must be nice to make your own living," she said, and, after thinking a moment, "awfully nice!"
"You bet. I got tired of seeing Dad come home for meals all tuckered out, to find me playing ball on the lawn or reading literature on the verandah."
He cast his eyes toward Main Street. The village bell announced the evening meal, and a familiar figure walked toward the home of George Nelson, village merchant.
"There he comes, Frankie," said Evan, unconsciously sighing; "that step will always remind me of summer evenings and studious noon hours."
The bankclerk felt a sudden desire to work hard and repay his father for the consideration shown him at school. The village merchant would have been willing to help his boy through any college in the country, and the boy knew it. He felt proud of his start in business, of the paltry two dollars in his pocket, as he watched his father approach.
Mr. Nelson waved his hat when he saw Evan on the verandah; and when he came up,—
"Hey," he laughed, "it's a wonder you wouldn't call into a fellow's store and say good-day."
Evan shook hands heartily, smiling into the blue eyes that had more than once cowed him with a glance, when he was performing some ridiculous feat of boyhood.
"I understand," said the father, before Evan could make an excuse; "it's up to Ma. I'm surprised she leaves you alone out here with a young lady."
Perceiving the effect of his remark on Frankie, George Nelson laughed merrily and pinched the girl's cheek.
Soon the glad family was seated at a supper table, Mrs. Nelson's table—that is description enough. Frankie knew she was not an intruder. She was there as Lou's companion, not as Evan's sweetheart. She knew Evan wanted her to be there, her mother knew it, his mother knew it, everybody knew it. The whole town knew it. Things might as well be done in the open, in Hometon, for they would out anyway.
"How's business, Dad?" asked Evan, in quite a business tone.
"Oh, just the same. We continue to buy butter for twenty-five cents and sell it retail at twenty-three cents. Joe breaks about the same number of eggs a day, and John is still good opposition. Well—how do you like the bank?"
"Fine," said Evan immediately; "the manager says he is going to push me along."
"Isn't that just splendid," exclaimed the mother, joyously.
"That depends," said Mr. Nelson, mischievously, "what is meant by being pushed along. If it means a move some hundreds of miles away——"
Mrs. Nelson sighed after vainly trying to smile. She was singularly quiet for a while. Her husband was enjoying himself immensely. He was an optimist, his wife inclined to pessimism. George Nelson believed in making the best of things that had already happened and making nothing of things to come until they came. Caroline, his wife, lived a great many of her troubles in advance. At the same time, the father was as "sentimental" as the mother in the teeth of happenings. He could suffer as much beneath a smile as she could behind tears. Encouraging the boy, however, was making the best of matters, and Mr. Nelson was going to do his part.
"Perhaps it's just as well you did quit school, Evan," he said cheerfully; "they say the new principal isn't up to much."
After that the conversation alternated between school and the bank, and Evan was enabled to gather valuable material for the institution of comparisons. He launched out in the direction of a bank and kicked back-water schoolward. He managed so well no one had the heart to duck him; his friends had compassion on him in his young enthusiasm. But in spite of the consent silence is supposed to lend, Evan felt that he was scarcely convincing. An atmosphere of good old days was thrown about him; Frankie seemed to be dropping suggestions continually that took him back to the classroom, where Literature and History charmed, or upon the ball field, where Mike Malone swung his long leg and his barnyard boot. A little opposition would have given the bankclerk a keener interest in the conversation; the reiteration of "yes" seemed to make him doubt his own arguments.
But Evan was not to be disheartened by imaginings. He used more of his technical talk on the "Dad," though with less effect than he had observed on the women, and, as a sort of clincher, divulged a little of the bank's business. The father took an interest there.
"Do you mean to say they've got deposits amounting to that?" he said, postponing a bite.
Mrs. Nelson lighted up. Evan was coming out.
"Isn't it grand," she cried, "to think your bank is so strong, Evan. Just think of all those deposits."
"Humph!" grunted the father, "and a fellow can't get a loan to save his neck."
He stole a look at his son, but Evan was not familiar with loans, yet. His first business in that direction was going to be done with Watson, a few days later. Mr. Nelson's hint affecting the management of a bank passed over Evan's head, for Evan was a clerk, not a banker. When it came to actual banking the father knew much more than our banker did, but his knowledge was not comprehensible to the boy, much less to Mrs. Nelson. The "Dad" could only eat his baked potato, look at his dish of strawberries—and trust to the future.
Saturday evening was a small triumph for Evan. He walked up and down the village street with Frankie and Lou, ravaged the refreshment parlors, chatted at every crossing with a bevy of old schoolmates, and spent an enjoyable and typically "village" night.
Sunday morning was bright, and the Nelson family was gay. The word "bank" reverberated throughout the kitchen, the dining-room and parlor, floated around the verandah, tinkled among the Chinese jingles clinking in the breeze, and bounced like a ball on the lawn. Evan was happy all forenoon. And he talked a great deal at dinner.
After dinner, though, Our Banker's mind took a business turn. He thought of what the manager had said to him about work piling up and waiting for the clerk. While he sat for a few moments alone on the verandah he mentally sorted over a bunch of bills, entered them up wrong, heard Castle's squawking voice, and eventually yawned over a heap of mail. He found several envelopes returned from wrong banks and was (still mentally) expecting a memo from head office about them.
His father came quietly out of the house and took a chair beside him, driving away his routine ruminations.
"Evan," he said seriously, "I had a talk with your old teacher not long ago and he said it was a shame for you to quit school just when you did. He said you should have got your matric. at least, so that if ever you tired of the bank you could jump right into college. Now, if ever you feel like quitting, remember I'll be only too glad to send you back to school."
Those words had an effect exactly the contrary to what was intended. Evan felt the force of his father's generosity and unselfishness; he was strengthened in his resolve to be independent; not only independent, but a help to his father.
"No, Dad," he said; "I'm very fond of bank work, and I know I'll succeed."
Both encouragement and discouragement had the effect of spurring Evan on. There was no hope for him: he must go in and play the game—or, rather, fight the fight—to a finish. Then he would know what others knew but could not tell him; what Sam Robb knew and would have been happy to make every prospective bankclerk understand.
In spite of himself and his surroundings Evan felt the old homesickness creeping over him Sunday night. He had decided to take the first train on Monday back to work; he told himself that the hardest way was the best way, and he sought a short cut to success. After church Frankie found it difficult to elicit cheerful words from him.
The two strolled along a side street. Those dear old Ontario villages and towns where the boys and girls walk on Sunday nights along tree-darkened ways, how long will they listen to the repetitions of lovers? Evan's and Frankie's parents had said the same "foolish" things to each other that Evan and Frankie were now saying, and on the very same street. History repeats, but not with the accuracy of Love.
"Some day I'll come home a manager, Frankie," he was saying, "and then you and I will get married."
"Oh, I hope so," she answered.
She went to bed that night with a happy young heart, and Evan retired feeling sure he loved and would some day marry Frankie Arling.
A sickening sensation took possession of Evan as he boarded the train Monday forenoon for Mt. Alban. He found it hard to banish from his thoughts the invitation his father had given him, to return to school and the pleasant experiences that made up a school education.
The two young girls waved him good-bye from the platform of Hometon station, and it afterwards became known that a tear had stood for a second in the bankclerk's eye.
"You needn't have come till night," said the manager, as Evan walked solemnly into the office.
The words made Evan more homesick than ever. One characteristic of the disease known as homesickness is a strong tendency toward a relapse. One may imagine himself cured, he goes out of his environment,—and comes back with a new attack.
Because of the pain occasioned by visiting home Evan decided he would stay away several months before making another excursion among home-folk. In this resolve he was unintentionally selfish; his mother and his other friends loved to see his face, if it were but for an hour. But young men are always inconsiderate of their loved ones' affections. They probably fear that in humoring their parents and kin they will humor themselves to the point of losing their grit. What Evan considered self-preservation was, from the standpoint of the folk at home, something resembling neglect or indifference. When his mother received a note from him saying he would not be home till fall, she had a "good" cry. Mr. Nelson smiled, while the women-folk were looking, and sighed later.
"Let him go it," he said, cheerily; "it takes these things to make a man, you know."
Mrs. Nelson was more resigned after that; she was most anxious to see her son "a man."
Frankie was also notified of the rigid resolve. She felt chilly while reading the letter, and postponed an answer for two weeks. The letter she wrote was as follows:
"Dear Evan,—I don't see why you should make yourself any further away than you really are. It may not be very much pleasure for you to come back to this little burg, but itisnice for us.
"I wrote off my Latin and German papers to-day; to-morrow it's French and Literature. Do you remember how you used to help me guess the passages for memorization? You surely were a lucky guesser.
"If you are dead certain you don't want to come home for all those months, you will at least write occasionally and tell us how you are getting along. Mother is calling me now, and I must close. I hope you won't be offended at this letter.
"Sincerely,"FRANK."
When Evan received the note from "his" girl he was much excited. Perry had been moved, a new junior had come, and the old junior was promoted to savings bank. Not only was he excited, he was confused. Besides having to actually wait on customers he was obliged to break in the new "swipe"; and the latter, sad to tell, was about Porter's speed.
The reply Evan sent Frankie was busy. It was rushed off to convey the good news of promotion, and must necessarily have a business ring. In spite of its brevity, however, it contained two or three new bank idioms.
Real work began for Nelson. Not to say that a juniorship is a sinecure: some swipes earn their salaries several times over. One was once known to write the inspector as follows:
"Dear Sir,—I could make more money sawing wood than I can banking."
The following reply came back, through the manager, of course:
"Tell M—— he could earn more money at the job he mentions, but that it would not take him so long to learn wood-sawing as it will to learn banking."
The inspector might have gone one step further and got to the truth of the matter. One requires no education to saw wood, and no intellect; but both education and a certain degree of intelligence must appertain to him who would make successful application to a bank; and education itself requires an expenditure of time and money. The ability a young man possesses has cost him something and has cost his father or widowed mother a great deal. What right has the bank to use it without paying what it is worth? It ought to be worth a bare living, at least—like wood-sawing.
Time flew, for Evan, on his new post. There is certain excitement about bank work, just as there is in playing checkers. It is said of both occupations that they develop the faculties. Counting the stars also strengthens certain brain-tissues. In fact, there are many educational agencies in the world and the universe: it is no trouble to find one or a thousand—the difficulty comes in selecting. He who can choose, with open eyes, the factors that shall enter into his education, is going to be among the fittest. But few boys of seventeen know where to look; certainly Evan Nelson did not. He was naturally a specialist; that is, he was one to put his whole heart into anything. If he had been left to the moulding influence of a university he would have fastened upon literature or science and created something for the world; but, unfortunately, he was thrown headlong into a counting-house, and, being an enthusiast, began to dig among musty books with an energy that was, in great measure, wasted—except, to the beneficiaries of the concern.
The life he had led at home had given Evan scope for his imagination. The life he now led made no demand on his creative powers, with the result that his imagination turned away from great things and concentrated on little things—like pleasure.
It was the old story, the story that Sam Robb and others knew. With Nelson it began later than usual, but came with a rush in the following way:
One night in his room above the vault he sat reading in French a story from De Maupassant, a dictionary beside him. Bill Watson walked into the room and sat down with a grunt, and a cigarette. He lounged back in a chair, well-dressed and glossy-looking, and puffed white rings upward toward the ceiling.
"Why don't you go out a little, Evan?" he said, casually.
The ledger keepers had become pretty well acquainted by now. Evan's sincerity and energy were telling on the books, too. Even Castle had spoken nicely to him one day.
"Out where?" asked Evan, looking away from the French fiction.
"To parties. Where did you think I meant—out in the back yard?"
"I don't know many people yet," replied the savings man.
"You never will, either, unless you make a break. Say, kid, there's a party on to-night. I can get you a pass. Will you come?"
"It's too late," parried Evan.
Bill regarded him with a look of pity.
"Don't ever make a break like that to a girl in this town," he said, smiling, "or she'll take you for a greeny. People don't go to dances at eight o'clock, you know—not in Mt. Alban."
Nelson felt embarrassed. Watson was talking on:
"It helps business, you know. Customers like to know the fellows who are looking after their money. They like to think you take an interest in them."
Evan closed his book quickly.
"I'm not afraid to go to the hanged party," he said suddenly.
"That's talking, Nelsy. Get busy, then. You've got nothing to shave, so it shouldn't take you long to get ready."
Before long the new savings man presented himself dressed for the dance. Bill regarded him with concealed amusement.
"Say, Evan," he said softly, "could you lend us a dollar? I think there's something in my account, but I forgot to draw it this afternoon."
Evan knew there was nothing in Bill's account, but he could not refuse the trifling loan. He wondered how Watson could spend eight dollars a week, when his board only cost him three dollars and a half.
In return for the loan Bill did his best to make Evan feel comfortable at the dance. Now the savings man knew nothing about dancing, and he was equally ignorant of cards. He found girls at the party anxious to teach him the former, and married ladies ready to give him "a hand." With thought of Watson's recently delivered words fresh in his mind, he began to learn new ways of making himself valuable to the bank. He would ingratiate himself with the customers.
Two members of the party were particularly agreeable "customers." Evan discovered that there were some very interesting girls in Mt. Alban. One of the two belles paid Watson great attention and the other seemed partial to Evan himself; both treated him exceedingly well.
"She's a bird, isn't she, Nelson?" observed Watson, when the two bankclerks were alone for a moment.
"You bet. That dark hair of hers is mighty becoming."
Watson laughed.
"I mean the other, you jackass. Mine."
"Oh," said Nelson, absently.
The following day Julia Watersea came into the bank and deposited some money with the teller. Evan felt his face fill up when he saw the red passbook—it meant she would have to face him before the transaction was finished.
"How are you to-day?" he asked, working hard on the book and trying to look professional.
"Very well, thank you, Mr. Nelson. By the way, do you like picnics?"
Bill kicked him from behind.
"Yes—yes, indeed," said Evan, quickly.
"Well, we girls are getting one up for Saturday afternoon. Could you and Mr. Watson come?"
Bill rushed up to the savings wicket.
"Could we?" he cried, smiling at the dark-haired girl. "Can we?"
"All right," said Julia, with color; "we're going to meet at our place."
De Maupassant and the dictionary were doomed. Bill warmed up to the junior ledgerman now that the latter was growing sociable. He periodically forgot to put a cheque through during bank hours, preferring to do his business through Evan.
Miss Watersea's picnic happened, and it was a good one. Evan enjoyed himself so well he forgot to write Frankie her weekly letter. He would have had to mention Julia in it, anyway, and perhaps it was as well to omit writing altogether.
The girl Bill called his was something like Lou Nelson. Evan felt at home in her company, but she did not attract him in the same way Julia did. Hazel Morton had more fire in her than either Lou or Julia—that, Evan said to himself, was how it was she held Bill Watson. Bill was not at all easy to hold.
In the day when Evan Nelson was a savings ledgerman, bankclerks in Eastern towns were nicknamed "village idols." The title was quite appropriate, too. Even yet bankboys are looked for and looked after in those towns. It is quite natural that they should be, for they are a good class of fellows. The worst that can be said about them, as a rule, concerns their prospects; and it is to the credit of young women that they do not take a man's means into account when they want to fancy him.
After the picnic Bill and Evan were alone above the vault. The current-account man was moody.
"Kid," he said, impulsively, "it's —— to be poor, isn't it? Why don't you kick once in a while? The only decent kicker we have around this dump is Robb. He's all right."
Evan smiled pensively.
"—— it," continued Watson, "I don't see why a fellow can't earn enough to—to—"
"Get married on?" suggested Evan, who was, at the same moment thinking of an ideal composed of Frankie Arling and Julia Watersea.
"Sure! Why not?"
"Would you really like to get married, Bill?"
"Yes, I would."
"So would I."
Watson was forced to laugh. He was twenty—that was bad enough. But Nelson was not yet eighteen. Bill continued to gaze at the serious face of his companion until his own countenance changed. Instead of speaking or sighing he lighted a cigarette.
"Will you have one, Nelsy?"
Evan shook his head.
"Do you think Julia would object?"
"What's she got to do with me?" challenged Nelson.
"Why, she's your girl, man. Sailors have sweethearts in every port, you know, and bankers in every town."
Evan tried to connect sailors and sweethearts with cigarettes, but just at that time was unable to establish anything but a far-fetched relationship. Later in life, on the Bowery, he thought he saw the connection.
In the midst of parties and picnics balance day loomed up. Castle's frame of mind, like a special make of barometer, registered the event a day or so in advance.
"Have you got your ledger proved up?" he asked Evan.
"Pretty well, I think."
Under Bill's tutelage, Evan had dropped the "sir" when speaking to Castle.
"Remember, the interest has to be computed this month. Watson, it will be up to you to check it."
"I'm not the accountant," said Bill, chewing gum with a smacking noise. "I'll help him make it up, though."
Mr. Robb came to the cage door for some change, and the teller referred the matter to him.
"Oh, do your best with it, boys," he said. "I'm strong for co-operation. There isn't enough of it among the staff."
Castle turned away with a sneer.
"I've got the liability," he said, sulkingly.
"I'll take charge of that this time," returned Robb; "give the boys a hand at the savings, Alf. And say, Watson, get the cash book written up early so that I can post the general, will you?"
"All right, sir," said Bill, cheerily.
Evan experienced a thrill as these orders were passed around. He felt that he was part of a great system. The names of ledgers and balance-books sounded pleasant to him, for he was daily learning considerable about them. Their puzzles were solving and their mysteries dissolving before his constant gaze. He felt like an engineer lately on the job, or a new chauffeur, only more mighty.
His sense of greatness waned, though, toward midnight on balance day. The savings ledger was out an ugly amount. Bill was also in straits.
"It's a wonder to me," he growled, as the two plodded along alone in the semi-darkness, "that bankclerks don't go nutty."
Evan was scaling a column and did not answer. Watson continued, keeping time with the adding machine.
"Work, work, work; doggone them, it's a wonder they wouldn't ask for a few more particulars on this ledger-sheet. Why, in heaven's name, do they want the names of customers down at head office? They don't know these ginks here, and never will. If they don't believe our totals, why don't they come and look over the books? Oh, ——!"
"Hurrah!" shouted Nelson, cavorting around his desk.
Bill knew the savings man must have struck a balance, but he was too sorely irritated to show enthusiasm.
"Why don't you pat me on the back, Bill?"
"Shut up. Anybody could balance that passbook of a ledger."
Evan cooled down and remained quiet a while. Bill, thinking he had offended his companion, soon looked across with an apologetic smile. Nelson was staring wildly at his totals.
"What's the matter?" asked Watson, well acquainted with vacant looks in bankclerk faces on balance night.
"I—I thought I was balanced. It seems to be one cent out."
The reaction struck Bill as funny, because it duplicated experiences he had had and seen, but he made an effort to suppress his mirth. He laughed silently upon his own unbalanced return-sheet until his nervous system was satisfied, then he spoke.
"Evan."
"What do you want?" sourly.
"Did you ever hear the story about the maid who counted her chickens before they were?"
Evan scowled and raced up and down his columns in search of the stray cent. He did not find it. Bill took pity, seeing that he would not have to go past the units column, and proved Evan's totals. But the cent still hid.
"I'll bet it's in the calling," he said, grinning. "Do you know what that means?"
"No."
"It means you will have to tick off a whole month's work. And remember, we've got the interest to make up, too. No parties this week, kiddo. No more Julias for yours. She'll have another fancier by the time you're unearthed from this junk-heap."
Nelson wondered how Watson could make light of so gloomy a matter. He took his own work very seriously, as most bankboys have to. Bill often worried, but not about his work. When he changed pillows it was a question of finance.
"Cheer up, Nelsy," he said, carelessly, "things always turn up. Remember the old motto: 'It took Noah six hundred years to learn how to build an ark; don't lose your grit.' I'll fish you out if you get too far under water."
Evan was not fond of the idea of being fished out. He wanted to swim unaided.
But he failed. All next day he worried over his "difference," giving a start whenever one cent detached itself from an amount. In the evening Bill called off the ledger to him. When they were nearing the end he called an amount one cent wrong.
"What's that, what's that?" Evan repeated, excitedly.
Bill called it again, but rightly. He chuckled quietly for a little space, greatly to Nelson's aggravation.
It was midnight the first of the month. The savings man struggled alone with his balance; the desks swam around the office and figures danced like devils before him.
"D—!" he muttered.
That was one of his first legitimate swear-words at Mt. Alban—but others would come. The recording angel up above might as well open an account first as last, for one more human being had entered a bank.
The front door jarred and some of the bankboys entered. Bill was not quite sober, and one of his companions had, what he himself insisted was, "about half a bun."
"Don't work all night, Nelsy," said Watson, "th-there's another d-day coming."
"Sure, lots 'em," said the half-intoxicated one.
A teller from one of the other Mt. Alban banks extended a box of cigarettes toward Nelson.
"No thanks!"
"By heck, it helps a fellow a whole lot when he's tired," said the teller; "come on—just one."
Even felt fagged from hours of bootless labor. He hesitated, almost stupidly, and the bankclerk pushed the box rapidly into his hand. He figured it would be childish to refuse after that—and accepted his first cigarette.
It did help him, for the moment. After a few puffs he began to be amused at Bill's words and actions.
"Close up shop," said Bill, recklessly; "to —— with honest endeavor."
"How much are you out?" asked the alien teller.
"One dirty little copper," said Bill, answering for his desk-mate.
"Let's have a look," said the teller. "This is against the rules, I know—"
"Aw, bury the rules," cried Watson.
While the teller looked Evan's difference loomed up as big as a mountain. The tired savings clerk had stumbled over it many times.
"By Jove!" he shouted, "give us another cigarette!"
A moment later he was sorry he had asked for it, but he was obliged to smoke it. It brought him such pleasant sensations he decided it would be a good medicine to take in crises of hard work.
Immediately after Nelson's difference was found, the boys planned a dance. They had been treated well by the girls of Mt. Alban, and it was up to them to reciprocate.
"Don't you think so?" asked the semi-drunk.
"Sure," said Evan, choking on an inhale.
"Who'll start the fund?" asked Bill.
"I will," responded Nelson, producing a five-dollar bill—all he had.
"That's the kind of a sport," said the foreign teller. "Gee! I haven't seen a real five outside my cage for a month."
"I wish I was on the cash like you, Jack," grinned Watson.
"What would you do?"
"Why, borrow a little occasionally. You didn't get me wrong, I hope?"
"No chance, Bill; we know you're honest."
The dance given by the bankboys of Mt. Alban was a success—in all but a financial way. The thing did not pay for itself, and there was an extra draft on each banker for two dollars. Even wrote home for a loan of five dollars. He also hinted that he needed a new suit, that he felt shabby at parties beside the private banker's son and the haberdasher's nephew. A cheque came signed "George Nelson"; it was twenty-five dollars high. Evan sighed. Then he slowly folded the cheque into his wallet.
He ordered a suit from one of the town tailors and paid ten dollars down.
Bill Watson usually wrote the cash book and the cash items. He saw the cheque from Hometon and made mental note of it. A day or two later he asked Evan for a loan to pay the bank guarantee premium, and got five dollars.
When his suit was finished Nelson was a few dollars short. He went on the tailor's books. The same night Julia Watersea called him up and asked him down. He felt obliged to take some candy along.
"How much should I spend for a box of chocolates, Bill?" he asked.
"Nothing less than a buck, kid," replied Bill, almost rendering his speech ambiguous.
Evan's salary was still two hundred a year—dollars, not pounds. The box of candy he bought consumed almost two days' earnings.