Evan felt his heart stop and a sickening shudder ran through him as he read:
"Because he lost at the races and could not return money secretly borrowed from his cash, Sidney Levison, of the S—— Bank, Toronto, shot himself last night."
Of all the many thousands of New Yorkers who read that paragraph Evan Nelson, perhaps, was the only one who fully comprehended the meaning of it. He saw, as in a looking-glass, the gloomy series of steps down which the teller had come to where he lay, a suicide.
A germ began to work in Evan's mind. It must have been some relation to the garden-grubs that had infested Jim Japers' vineyard, for it showed a predilection for fresh air and outside work. Two incidents—the firing by the cashier of a clerk ahead of Nelson, and the receiving of a letter from A. P. Henty—did not help matters any.
Henty's handwriting had such a substantial appearance it seemed to indicate that some men were blessed with big fists to fall back on in case their fingers lost employment. A. P.'s composition, too, was solid and matter-of-fact; there were no flourishes, except occasional slang; the letter was plainly the product of a free mind and a steady nerve.
When the clerk who was discharged approached Evan with a smile and said: "Well, kiddo, you're next in line," Evan wondered why the fellow was so unconcerned about it. He asked him.
"Oh," answered the clerk, "we're used to that here, in New York. A fellow can always land another job. I usually manage to get the hook about twice a year; the work gets monotonous, and I suppose I lose ambish."
Evan wondered where one would get to under those circumstances. If he had stayed in the big city nine years instead of nine months he would have ceased to wonder about position hunters; they would have become a distinct element in urban life. As it was, the impression he received was quite true to the actual condition of affairs: a large city was a very precarious place.
However, the Canadian decided to stay in New York for the winter anyway; it was lively then, he was told, with the presence of returned "seasoners" and other summer absentees. He asked the cashier for promotion, and received it, along with two dollars increase in salary. He made up his mind to save five dollars a week; he could live and have considerable pleasure on the other twelve dollars.
Mardi Gras was over; not a straw hat was to be seen; the mornings grew chilly; theatres were in full swing. Then Miss Harris got Evan in with a "crowd"; the department stores hauled out their Christmas things; and with the first flurry of snow the whole town slid into winter.
The New York winter looked, at first, like a bluff. The man from Canada refused to wear an overcoat until one day a breeze came sweeping over the Atlantic and took him in hand; after that he had great respect for the climate.
Ethel Harris made good as a comrade. She knew how to keep things going. Evan was astonished at the ease with which he mixed in things; the boys seemed to have a way of fixing up that he could hardly catch, but they were a jovial bunch. An odd one was after the order of Castle, but most of them resembled Bill Watson in manner. The girls all expected to marry Riverside Drive property owners, but aside from that they were sane and congenial. Evan knew about how much money they made, and consequently took considerable delight in their exaggerations. They were practically all stenographers.
It takes New Yorkers to be friendly. The city is so big it resembles the world. In it there are as many countries as the world boasts, and when the members of a social set meet they come like so many travellers from the ends of the earth, bringing stories with them that Park Row reporters never hear about. There is real life and entertainment in a gathering of young Manhattanites.
Evan took great pleasure in those parties. Often he danced with some girl who had gone on the stage (for about one performance), and there was considerable romance in that. As the winter passed he wondered if he really wanted to leave those friends and that gaiety. Ethel treated him so well he was glad to spend all his spare money on her, at theatres, suppers and so on. But he always put away the five dollars a week just the same. He was led to believe that not many New York lads did that much for their future.
In February a Southerner came on the scene. The first night of his reception in the crowd he succeeded in breaking the hearts of half the girls; the other half succumbed the second night. The Southerner was not a flirt—that may have accounted for his elaborate success. He was so far from being a flirt that he fell in love with Ethel Harris and proposed to her.
Now, the real working-out kind of proposal is not so common in New York as, judging from the population, one might suppose. Ethel began to advise Nelson against spending so much money foolishly. For a while her objections to his "friendship" were overruled; but finally she got desperate and candidly told the Canuck he was up against Kentucky. He had to take the hint.
Thus, again, Evan was impressed with the uncertainty of things in the metropolis. He took Ethel's engagement to heart for a day or two, until an office-girl accidentally slipped while passing his desk and steadied herself on his neck. She proved to be a married woman, however, and Evan turned his attention to spring.
Appearances are against the ex-bankclerk, but he must not be judged too rashly on the head of his Manhattan experiences. It looks as if he had forgotten all about Toronto and Hometon; but he had not. He had never written Frankie, it is true, but he had heard about her from his sister and had a dim idea that some day he would go back and marry her. It is remarkable how a fellow sticks to his home-town girl! Through jealousies about other girls, like Ethel Harris, through the maze of a dance with actresses, he still sees the face that smiled on him across the school-room hack in the old town.
In March a very exciting letter came from Henty.
"Dear Evan," it read, "wire me at once. Tell me if you'll come. I mean to British Columbia. The Nicola Valley is awaiting our arrival. There is a homestead there for each of us. My father will give me five hundred dollars, and I'll share with you, on a loan for life, if you'll come. A fellow only needs to pay ten dollars cash and hold down the land six months a year for three years, and make 'reasonable improvements.' I understand they are very lenient about improvements. Our five hundred dollars will look after that part of it. The soil is very fertile. I'm taking a cow with me and a clucking hen. In the winter months we can get a job bookkeeping or lumbering; or if our crop of onions turns out well this summer we won't need to work at all in winter. Wire. Don't let anything penetrate your nut for the next few hours but the word 'wire.' I must know. Don't let money keep you; if you need some,wire. What I have said goes, if you will come. A. P."
Evan was sitting in the elevated when he read the letter. It had come as he started to work and he had not had time to stop and read it at his lodging. Again at the Bridge he read it. Around him the crowds were surging, rushing to work with that morning vigor that looks as though it would last forever. The merry throng about Evan seemed like his friends; the thought that he should leave them made him lonesome. What would he do without the morning paper? Where would he buy peppermint chocolates at twenty-five cents a pound? Even more trivial questions than these occupied his mind.
Stuffing the letter in his pocket, he boarded the up-town L, and got off at Twenty-third Street. The Metropolitan tower looked disdainfully at him: it was the New York flag-pole, and he was about to desert the colors. At noon-hour he sat in the little restaurant on Twentieth Street West. He had the letter memorized by this time, but he drew a bank-book from his pocket to make sure he was familiar with its contents. Yes, the eighty dollars were still there.
After work he was tired. He was always tired after a day's office work. The hour before supper was always one of yawning, of hurry, dust and reflection. Taking the subway down to the Bridge, he wedged up the steps between two foreigners who had been regaling themselves with garlic, and looked wistfully at Loft's. There was a candy-fiend in his stomach crying for food. He was half way to the candy-shop when he overcame the evil one with a sweet tooth; he turned back toward the Bridge, but seeing a crowd in one of the newspaper offices, stepped in. His ear caught the click of a telegraph instrument. He forgot the crowd gazing at new aeroplane models, and found himself again on Park Row. The ten-thousands faded from before his sight, the yapping of newsies died away, there was no dust and no yawning: he saw a green valley and heard the birds; he saw Henty in chaps astride of a pony; and a shanty loomed up. The blood of Grandpa Nelson bubbled in his veins; he was a proud son of Adam, doing business direct with Nature. There was no car to catch on the morrow, and no hash-house to patronize. His horses neighed to him, and he heard the sizzle of frying ham in a clean frying-pan.
The telegraph instrument continued to click in the young book-keeper's ears. He looked once more on the throng around him: it was the evening throng—tired, nervous, hateful. Men climbed in the cars ahead of pale, helpless girls; an old lady clung to the unwilling arm of a convict-faced son; and a little newsboy cried brokenheartedly in the gutter. Tiny girls wrestled with bundles of papers; a bald magnate cursed his chauffeur for refusing to run down a dog and save time; and a policeman chased half a dozen naked urchins who were puddling in City Hall Fountain. When one is tired these things jar on him. The telegraph still ticked in Evan's ear; the valleys still stretched before his imagination. He was aware, now, of a discord in the music of his dreaming: it was the noise around him, the shouting, the brutal rush. He turned toward Broadway.
Evan had made up his mind. He wired Henty that he would go to British Columbia. He asked A. P. to reply by day-message to Twenty-third Street.
About noon next day the answer came: "Meet me in Buffalo in two days, if possible. I will be staying at my cousin's, — Forest Avenue. If necessary I can wait a week for you."
But it was not necessary. Evan had no difficulty in getting away from his position. The cashier was disappointed, but he did his best to hide it; Evan heard him remark to the assistant cashier:
"When we do land a good man he gets offered more elsewhere. If I wasn't afraid of the boss I'd raise Nelson to twenty-five dollars rather than lose him."
Wondering, for a moment, if he had not done a foolish thing in resigning, Evan scratched his head, but the friction set his imagination aglow again—and he bade the office good-bye.
He met Henty in Buffalo the following night.
"What are you going by way of the States for?" he asked.
"So that the Canadian banks won't get you again," said Henty.
After sending his mother a silk scarf and Lou a pair of stockings and a box of candy, as a partial atonement for the wrong he was doing them in not visiting home, Evan bought a pair of corduroy breeches and heavy boots, subscribed for a farm magazine, and set out, with big A. P., for the far-away fields. They say those fields always look green; sometimes, perhaps, theyaregreen.
Just as that "Overland Limited" sped along must this story speed. The boys fell asleep in New York State and awakened many miles from its border. And here in this story, as in a Pullman, only more obliviously, must the reader sleep—to awaken at a distance.
In a certain part of the Nicola Valley stood a cottage known as the "Bachelors' Bungalow." It, was alone except for the companionship of stables and out-houses. It was evidently not built in a land where lumber was scarce, for wide, heavy verandahs almost surrounded it.
From any of these verandahs one could get a splendid view of the mountains; to the south a green vista of valley stretched away.
A young man sat in the open, not listening to the greybirds or the meadowlarks sing of spring, and not revelling in the beauty before and around him, but working assiduously at a typewriter. On either side of his little table magazines and newspapers lay in heaps; there were Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver and other papers, and various Canadian magazines. Now and then he paused in his writing to pick up one of these periodicals and take note of a paragraph he had marked.
"I wonder if Alfy ever stops to read any of these articles?" murmured Evan, and laughed quietly. "Judging from the opinion he always had of my disability I doubt if he would attribute literary efforts to me."
Now that we know who the young man is and what he is doing at a typewriter in the Nicola Valley, it may be well to explain the situation.
Three years had passed since Henty and Nelson landed in the green fields of their dreams. They bought seed and other agricultural necessities on the way out, old man Henty shipped them two cows, two horses, a few hens, a pig, and some farming utensils. They ordered lumber from a Revelstoke company, erected a shack, a temporary shelter for the stock, and built a hen-house with a pig-pen annex.
A. P. showed that he was born to be a farmer. The way he handled the plow put Evan to shame; but Evan made up in willingness to work what he lacked in physical efficiency. He learned to milk cows and make butter; he went irregularly to the village for the raw food they needed, talked the merchant into giving him a line of credit, and surveyed the valley all the way home with the pride of Noah after the flood. He developed into so good a cook that A. P. declared there must have been a chef in the family away back.
The first crop the boys had was good because it was not very big. They sold their early garden-stuff at a big price to the C.P.R., and in the fall got twenty dollars a ton for their potatoes—on the ground. Every drop of milk they could spare found a ready market in the village; often they exchanged it for butter. And those hens of theirs made good; they made very good. A. P. insisted on eating all the eggs, but Evan managed to hide away enough each week to buy sugar, tea and bread. It must be admitted, however, that bread was more frequently absent from than present at the board; crackers and ginger-snaps made edible substitutes.
When the first winter set in the bachelors of "Bachelors' Shack"—it was not a bungalow yet—were prepared for it. They had money in the bank.
"It's me for a Jew's harp and a line of novels," said Henty; "no lumbering for mine this winter. I'm all calloused from wrestling with our valley."
Nevertheless A. P. could not content himself to read longer than a week at a time. He made irregular excursions into the village and juggled scantling in a new lumber yard. Evan wanted to go, too, but Henty grunted in disgust—and Nelson agreed to stay home and tend the stock. The sow old man Henty had given them raised a family. One of the pigs was killed for meat, and the others were dressed and sold to a butcher.
The winter was mild, and there was enough snow to protect and fertilize the ground. It was a good winter for the young bachelors; the wood-chopping they did gave them health abundant, their chores kept Henty's superfluous masculinity worked off and taught Nelson the practical way of things, and the simple food they ate gave their minds an appetite for knowledge.
With all their wood-cutting and chores, though, the boys had more spare time than they knew how to dispose of. Often in the evenings they played cards, sang duets from a book of old songs, or read. To say they were always content would not be true; many a time they felt the weight of the great Silence about them, and above all they longed for the fleeting image of a girl. If they could only just see one—it would be like a drink of water on Sahara!
At long intervals they hired a boy from the village to watch their flocks for a couple of days, while they made an excursion to some town. There they filled up on candy and picture-shows until they were glad to return home.
In many ways the first winter of their squatting in the Nicola Valley was a tester on the ex-bankclerks. They sometimes felt like giving up; not because they needed food or drink, but because of the youth in them. Young men are impetuous animals; they want to be forever shifting. Sometimes Evan had to walk in the beautiful winter night until he was tired out, so that he could forget his yearnings for city life, especially New York life. He felt the lure of the White Way at a distance of three thousand miles. Others had felt it from the ends of the earth, and had succumbed to it.
But Nelson did not succumb. He knew he must take his mind off the East, if he would succeed in the West, and he did so. He read more and more every week. When Henty was away at the scantlings Evan studied and thought. At last he began to write down his thoughts; he discovered that there was great satisfaction in expressing himself to a sheet of paper. He eventually sent to Vancouver for a typewriter, bought a book of instruction, and for twenty-one days studied the touch method. He practised six and eight hours a day, with his eyes on the chart before him. At the end of the twenty-one days he was a touch-typist, accurate and fairly rapid. The typewriter off his mind, he wrote and wrote. His heart was fast wrapping itself in vellum. Henty looked on in silence for a few weeks, then shook his head and said facetiously:
"I'm afraid you don't love me any more, Nelsy."
But spring soon came to A. P.'s relief, with the advent of which Evan had to set aside his typewriter and dream without writing down his dreams. Because of faculties newly awakened, however, he found more beauty and entertainment in Nature than he had ever seen there before. He began to think poems as he worked on the land. The plots of stories came to him, and articles grew upward from the horizon to the sun, or in columns like Oriental writings. At night he would sit up an hour longer than his big red-faced friend, and pour out his imaginings to the typewriter—the poor typewriter. The speed he developed was a detriment to composition; the faster he went the more hyperbolic and awful became his effusions, and so we repeat, the poor typewriter! It had brought about its own terrible punishment.
The summer passed, bringing its crops again, and another batch of pigs. A mare and a cow added to the animal creation, too. Old man Henty sent out a reaper and commanded his son to grow hay the following year instead of buying it from the Okanagan Valley. The boys built another out-house, bought some calves, and kept adding to their effects. The calves gave Evan copy for some humorous stories, several of which were good enough to be rejected by an Eastern magazine. The young "writer" thought the "not available" slip had been written especially for him, and its wording flattered him to further submissions.
The second winter was almost a repetition of the first—for Henty; but not for his companion. They made a trip to Vancouver at Christmas and sent bundles of presents home. A. P. loaded up with novels, and, to Evan's consternation, bought a guitar. But he learned to strum it, although it took him all winter.
Henty was a marvel in his way. Nelson put him in many a sketch and story. Not once during the long months had the Banfield ex-junior acted the part of a weakling. Evan reflected that it was easy enough for himself to keep within bounds, speaking after the manner of Physical Culture, being mentally engaged all the time; but Henty seemed to contain himself by force of will. His virility made a man of him instead of being a snare to him. Evan conceived a hope, founded on the respect he had for his companion, that was some day going to be realized.
A. P. took increased interest in the writings of his friend.
"Evan," he said, one day, in his sudden way, "I should think that a fellow with your habit of writing would tell the story a certain ex-bankclerk has to tell about the bank."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Evan.
He went right to work on a long bank story. He wrote it over and over, and submitted it over and over, but it did not meet with success. One editor told him it was too lurid; another said it was immature. Henty swore it was the best thing he had ever seen. Is it not unfortunate that our manuscripts cannot be finally edited by someone who canappreciateus? Gods of Literature! what a bunch of stuff would be printed. Typewriter companies would do away with the instalment plan entirely.
Between seeding and haying the third spring, the boys built a bungalow, enlarged their animals' quarters, and hired a man. They were blessed with a pretty good crop, and the market was growing. Other settlers had come into the valley, and there was talk of a village springing up near-by. Henty began to wear a smile.
After the fall rush Evan settled down harder than ever to his literary efforts. He wrote articles on the bank. As if his style had suddenly come up to the required standard, editors began to write short letters of excuse with returned manuscripts; then to accept. Why waste words on the thrills Evan, yes, and Henty, experienced when they read the breezy stuff of "X. Bankclerk" in print!
In his letters home Evan intimated that he would have a surprise for them before long, but that was as much as he said. He filled pages describing his and Henty's vines and figtrees, and his father came back with: "I told you your grandfather was in you!" His mother rejoiced in his health but longed for him home; Lou called him a "rube;" and Frankie—Frankie did not have a chance to say anything because Evan had never answered that letter she wrote to New York.
Now, as the young man sat on the verandah of his bungalow, not listening to the greybirds and meadowlarks around him, he felt happy. He and Henty were going to make a trip back to Ontario in the autumn, and then he could meet the editors who had congratulated him on his "good dope," as one of them had described his articles. He rattled over the keys of his machine, after making the observation about Alfy, and was so engrossed in his work that he did not notice the approach of Henty.
A. P. had been to Vancouver, and was back sooner than expected. He seemed excited.
"Evan," he cried, jumping on the verandah, "we're made men! A syndicate wants our land! They're talking of a townsite!"
"The dickens!"
"Yes, sir. They offered me $60,000, half cash."
"You're drunk, A. P.!"
"No, sir. You know the head of the syndicate; his name is William Watson."
It took Evan some time to recover from the shock association of Bill Watson's name with a real-estate syndicate naturally produced. Then he asked Henty bewilderedly:
"Are you going to accept the sixty thousand?"
"AmIgoing to?"
"Yes."
"Not unless my partner is willing," replied Henty. "Isn't one of these quarter-sections your own?"
"Yes, but you're manager of both; I don't know whether they're worth $60,000 or not. Would half of it look good to you?"
"You bet," said A. P. "I'd take a trip around the world, then come back and get married; I believe I'd settle down somewhere out here."
"Who would you marry?"
"Oh, anybody. I feel right now as if I could fall in love with anything."
Evan laughed, but soon sobered in thought,
"I think, A. P.," he said, after a pause, "that I can suggest a better trip than one around the world. I've often dreamed about it since my bank stuff has been well received. You know I've been drumming up the idea of Bank Union pretty strong. Why not bestow an everlasting favor on Bankerdom by travelling into every nook and corner of Canada and organizing the clerks? You and I could do it. They all know me by reputation, and I would give you credentials."
Henty ran his hands through his hair and looked wild.
"By the jumping Jehoshaphat!" he exclaimed, "what a hit that would make! Why, the boys would make a bronze image of you and a stone one of me to pickle our memory forever! Do you think we could do it?"
"Sure," laughed Evan; "haven't we got all the big newspapers in the country on our side? And aren't the banks in the legislative limelight? They couldn't pull off anything mean on us, because we would keep in touch with our editor friends. If they started firing the boys we could appeal to the public."
Henty grew more and more interested, not to say excited.
"You seem to have got the thing all cut and dried!"
"I have," said Evan; "I've been conning it over for months. At first I wondered if I couldn't get some rich man to endow such a movement, and make a real philanthropist of himself. But the trouble with rich men is that they want to get richer, and bucking the banks is no way to do it—in Canada, anyway."
A. P. let his eyes wander over the valley and up the mountain side. A smile gradually spread over his features.
"Nelsy," he said, "are you sure you haven't got an axe to grind?"
"You bet I have. Was there ever any sort of reform started by a man unless he had known the evil in his own experience? My grudge against the bank is going to be the boys' safeguard, and they will know it. They will know I'm out to organize a union because I want to show the banks that they are not supreme. Of course if it were for the satisfaction alone, I wouldn't spend a lot of money working it up. I know it will be a great thing for present and future bankclerks—that's really why I want it. But, you see, the boys will know I'm not out for graft when I have my own story printed and circulated among them. Besides, I won't collect any money; I'll merely carry the union up to a point where organization is possible, and then they can entrust the finances to anyone they choose. The thing must appeal to them as a business proposition; I think they understand already that a union of clerks would be self-supporting. Some of them are suspicious because of past bunco games that have been pulled off under the guise of bank unions; but I will leave them no room for suspicion of us fellows. As to the moral success of the thing,—as soon as they realize it is past the dangerous stage they will be eager to join. Every effort so far made in the direction of an association of bankclerks has been squelched by the head office authorities. There was one instance in Toronto of a bank's firing quite a bunch of clerks who dared to defend themselves against the barbarities of the business. The press didn't even get wind of it. Things would be different now, and the boys would soon understand that; for the whole country is discussing those articles I have submitted, as well as the innumerable letters and articles of endorsation that have come from other clerks and ex-clerks."
"I'm ready to pack up," said Henty suddenly, half-jokingly. "But we haven't got the dough for our land yet. They want word at once; will I go to town and wire them?"
"Yes," replied Evan, mechanically, his whole mind on the bank.
"And how about the girl I'm going to marry?" asked A. P., as he led his horse up to the verandah.
"She's in my home town," said Nelson; "her name is Frankie Arling."
"Some name, too," observed Henty, dreamily; "you're not fooling me, are you?"
"No," replied Evan, smiling inscrutably.
Together they ate a bite of supper, and then Henty set out on horseback for the village. He returned before Evan was in bed. Next morning the hired man was informed that he would be left alone for a day or two, and to watch that the old sow didn't get any more of the hens.
Togged out like the homesteader sports they were, Evan and Henty left for Vancouver. They met the syndicate, who seemed to know every foot of land in the Nicola Valley, signed over their 320 acres, received a cheque for $30,000 and a note with security for another thirty, and refused to participate in a drunk.
"We must get back," said Henty; "I've got the live stock to sell yet."
Bill Watson and Evan excused themselves and went into a side office. It was their first opportunity to speak of old times.
"I can't tell you how glad I am you've made good, Evan," said Bill. "How did it all happen?"
Evan briefly related his experience since quitting the bank. Watson listened with interest until it leaked out who "X. Bankclerk" was, after which his silence changed to: "God love you for that!"
Without heeding the exclamation Evan continued with his story, and finally announced his intention of starting a bank union.
"You can do it," said Bill, enthusiastically, "and I'll back you if you need more money. I knew it would come. It had to come!" Then, "Won't you come down and see Hazel?"
"What, you're married!" cried Evan.
"You bet. I kept her waiting long enough, didn't I? But say—won't you come down and see her? I've got something more startling still to tell you about; two things!"
Evan wanted to see Hazel and to have a visit with Bill. He persuaded A. P. to stay over a day.
Hazel was a changed girl. There was the same old peculiar fire in her eyes, but she was now healthy and happy looking.
"How good it is to see you, Evan," she said, giving his hand a generous squeeze. "Look who's here!"—pointing to a cradle.
Evan got on his knees to the baby, who acknowledged the attention with a coo.
"I'll bet you have started already to spoil him! By the way, Hazel, the little chap reminds me: how did you win Bill all so suddenly?"
Hazel smiled happily:
"Only about a month after you wrote Billy he came down to Hamilton and informed me we were going West—together."
Bill turned and looked at Evan.
After supper, while Henty was dividing his attention between Hazel and the baby, Bill whispered to Evan:
"The boy is one of the surprises I had for you. I've got another—come in the smoking-room."
Nelson followed, excusing himself with Hazel and Henty.
"Haven't you been wondering, Evan," said Bill, puffing in his wonted fashion at a cigarette, "how I got—well, where I am?"
"I admit I have, Bill."
"Well, just listen to my story, and ask questions when I'm through.... Shortly after receiving your Hamilton letter I made up my mind to get some money somewhere and marry Hazel. She was working her head off and worrying herself to death about me; I couldn't stand it any longer. I made up my mind toget money. My chance came. The cash was short one thousand dollars one day—mycash. I explained that I must have paid out two hundred tens instead of fives. It was Saturday; they had transferred me to the second paying-box just a few days before. I figured that here was my chance to make a mistake. Now, being over twenty-one I was my own bondman, and the bank couldn't collect from anybody but me—or the guarantee company. I knew that, of course. Well, I pretended to worry myself sick over the loss, and checked my vouchers over about a dozen times. At last I pretended to give up, and told them I would look no more for it.
"'All right,' said Castle, 'you'll have to put it up.'"
"I said nothing just then, but before long I told them I would go to jail before I'd put it up. I went to the manager, then to the inspector, and hung the bluff around. At last they decided to kick me out of the bank and let the guarantee company make good the loss. I hung around Toronto for a little while, with two five-hundred dollar bills tucked under my shirt. Soon I made a trip to Hamilton, captured Hazel, and came to Edmonton, Alberta. I struck it rich there. I cleaned up ten thousand bucks in a few months. After that it was easy to get fifty thousand. I'm worth a hundred now."
Bill smiled around his cigarette, and waited for his friend to speak. It was no easy matter for Evan to find words, either, although he felt that Bill was telling the truth.
"Did you ever pay them back, Bill?" he asked, expectantly.
"Oh, yes," said Watson, drawing a registered-letter slip from his pocket. The receipt was made out to John Honig, for a thousand dollars. "Some assumed name that, eh, Evan?"
"Yes. How long did you hang on to the coin, Bill?"
"You see the date. I kept it as long as I thought it was coming to me. You know I labored like a lackey for five years on half pay in the bank. They really owed me every cent of the thousand, but I only pinched the interest on it for two years. That wasn't much, eh? It made me rich, though; and so I ought to forgive the bank. What do you think of me, Nelsy, as a one-time Sunday School teacher?"
"I wasn't thinking of the right or wrong of it, Bill, but of your nerve. Just imagine what would have happened if they had caught you."
Bill laughed disdainfully.
"Jail couldn't have been any worse than that office. My conscience troubled me a while—until I found that the thousand was making me more. Then I knew I could pay it back when I liked. When you come to figure it all out, isn't that exactly what the banks do with the people's deposits?"
As the train wound its way along gorges and through tunnels eastward from Vancouver, Henty and Evan were silent. Evan was thinking of what Watson had done, and said. It was a fact that banks gave three per cent. interest on deposits, which they used on speculations in Wall Street and elsewhere; those speculations netting them such high dividends that great buildings had to be erected to conceal them. And how was the customer treated who wanted to borrow a few hundred dollars in an emergency? Even though he had been a depositor for years, getting three per cent., what sort of accommodation was the bank willing to give him when he was temporarily up against it? Evan knew. He remembered too well the old excuse handed out to the customer, year after year: "We have to cut down our loans." Why did theyhaveto? Whydothey have to? Who makes them, who wants them to do it? The eternal answer is "Head Office." But who is Head Office?—the bank. The bank commands the bank to cut down its loans, just as it commands the bank to do many things detrimental to the country's good. And why not? Don't the people of Canada stand for it? Don't they give their money and sons to the banks, according to the traditions and idolatries of their fathers?
Evan's mind dwelt upon High Finance. He pondered and pondered on the thing Watson had done, and, in the light of common business morality, could find no fault with it; but in his heart he knew it was wrong. The argument he found against it was a trite one, but true: "The wrongs of others are no palliation of ours." If the banks did wrong in using depositors' money to earn dividends for the rich, that was not the clerk's business—that was thepublic's business.
What then was the clerk's business? It was the clerk's business to see that he received a decent salary. He did real work, oh very real! and he was entitled to a salary upon which he could both live and, at a reasonable age, support a wife. Why didn't he get it? Because the bank could, by intimidation and repression, by promising and bluffing, get him for less than a living wage. But "why" was not so much to the point as "how."Howwas he going to get it? How had other workers of every description obtained a bread-and-butter wage? By making themselves indispensable to their employers? Yes. And how accomplish that in banking? If any man thinks he can make himself indispensable to a bankindividually, he is mistaken. But men in any trade or calling can make themselves necessary to an employercollectivelyby co-operating; and co-operation is the only way. Evan knew that it was the only way for bankclerks to obtain their rights. The banks would not do business with an individual because they didn't have to; it was easier to dismiss him. But their offensively arbitrary methods could not be employed where a great number of clerks were concerned. If the bankclerks of Canada were united they could talk as a body, and the banks of Canada would be compelled to listen. It did not occur to Evan for a moment that the boys would go on strike: but they would have the power to strike, and, if the banks were mad enough to resent business negotiations, they would show that theycouldstrike.
Henty wakened out of his reverie and Evan began discussing bank union with him. They had money in their pockets and enthusiasm in their souls. They discussed the workings-out of the scheme, and youthfully pictured scenes that were brightest. Still, had they not dreamed of green fields and seen their dreams come true?
"How much are we going to spend on it, Evan?" asked Henty.
"I figure it will cost us two thousand dollars each to get the thing in motion. Then if the organization ever gets rich enough it may want to pay us back. Do you feel like affording so much?"
"Sure—I don't mind a couple of thou'."
Nelson laughed; he was happy. The spirit of the reformer had somehow got into his system and he thought only of the work before him. He tried to estimate the happiness it would bring to the worn-out clerk, the booze-fighting clerk, the forced-to-be-untrue lover clerk, the poor parents who spent their savings in fitting out juniors for the "glory of the bank," and the girls waiting in home towns.... His imagination came to a halt, for a space, and he very unimaginatively sighed over by-gone illusions. Then he forgot the bitterness of disillusionment in a picture that framed itself on the window of the observation-car, against a dark background of passing rock and pines. He saw himself walking beside Frankie on one of the streets of Hometon. Her dear eyes were downcast, but her hand was willingly in his, and they were speaking of the days when he should come back a manager! A longing made itself felt in his heart, a longing to go back and redeem his pledge; but he hesitated. He knew she was not married to Perry—Porter was no longer in Hometon—but Evan felt unworthy of her after a silence of over three years. He had often thought of writing her and asking forgiveness, but had not been in a position to marry her—until the syndicate came along. He had told himself all along that it was poverty that kept him from renewing his love; but now that poverty no longer stared him in the face, now that he could give her a home, he hesitated. Why?—Because he was afraid! He knew he loved her and he feared to run the risk of a rebuff by mail. Such is the cowardice of a guilty lover's heart. He realized that he had hurt her very deeply; hints from Lou had convinced him of that; and he felt that he would have to go for her in person and in earnest to fully demonstrate his all too mysterious affection. He had a strong impulse to stay on the train, with fifteen thousand dollars in his wallet, and make a run for Hometon; but he knew that would be rash. He wanted to go to Frankie with more than money; he wanted to go in all contrition and to carry news of his triumphs over the bank that had disgraced him.
"Where will we start in?" asked Henty, rousing.
For a moment Evan did not comprehend the question, then he smiled, remembering how readily Henty usually thought things out. A. P. must have been pondering very deeply to take so long a time in evolving that simple question. It was to the point, however; they might as well work from west to east, seeing that they were so near the Pacific and so far from the Atlantic. That consideration had caused Evan to hesitate when his impetuosity suggested Frankie at a single jump.
"Vancouver, I guess, A. P."
"That means," said Henty, grinning, "that I'll be a long time before I meet that Hometon girl of yours—of mine."
"Not so very long."
"What did you say her name was, again?"
"Arling—Frankie Arling. I'm sure you'll fall in love with her."
A. P. stretched, yawned and replied:
"I'm sure I will, too."
They sold out their stock and effects at a good profit—Henty always looked out for the profit. When the people of the village, fifteen miles away, heard that the boys of Bachelors' Bungalow were leaving they gave a dance, at which there were present lumberjacks as chief masters of ceremony and hotel-maids as belles. One of the village storekeepers was there, too, with bitter complaints against Fate.
"Dang you," he said, "how do you think a man's goin' to make a livin' out of these Chinks? Dang me if it ain't a shame as you're leavin'."
"Cheer up, Uncle Dud," said Henty, "I'll be coming back with a wife sometime, and then your sales will double."
In less than a month after they had closed the deal with the syndicate the boys took leave of their bungalow. They still owned it and the little plot of ground on which it stood, but they were loath to leave just the same. A meadowlark sang them a farewell, and the sweetness of his song affected Henty's eyes. Nelson saw it and liked his friend better than ever.
"I don't blame them for wanting to make a townsite of this valley," said A. P., as they drove to the station. "They won't be stinging anybody no matter what they charge for the lots."
Before doing battle in Vancouver the two "farmers" held a day's consultation. They warmed up on a matinee, digested a Chinese dinner of chop suey and foyung, rice-cakes and various uncivilized desserts, went to bed late, and next morning had a plunge in the ocean. By that time they had decided Vancouver was a bad place to begin operations in, and they took boat for Victoria. There they really went to work.
Selecting one of the largest offices, Evan sauntered in and took a view of the staff. Henty was waiting around the corner. Strange to say, two or three of the bankboys were taking a rest by one of the desks. Evan approached them and asked a general question about the town, as a stranger might. He liked the way one of the fellows looked at and talked to him, and made bold to reveal his identity. The clerk held out his hand:
"Put it there!" he said; "will you come up to our rooms to-night? We'll have a bunch there to see you that'll make your hair stand on end."
The ball was about to roll. Evan gave his promise and went out to rejoin Henty.
"A. P.," he said, "we've got them going. I've discovered the best way to proceed. Just spot some fellow who looks good to you and then lead up to the subject of X. Bankclerk. If he is not interested pass him up and keep on looking till you find someone who is; then leave the raising of a crowd to him. In cities like this we can afford to spend two or three days."
Henty was excited. He flushed as only he could flush, and closed his fists with nervous satisfaction.
The Victoria bankclerk got together a crowd, as he had promised; there were old and young fellows, tall and short fellows, but all good fellows. They forced Nelson into a speech, which they cheered and applauded. They insisted on ordering drinks, but Evan told them he would be disappointed if they started off a union that way. They were all anxious to have their names enrolled as first members of "The Associated Bankclerks of Canada." One of the boys went down to a bookstore and returned with a record book in which applications for membership were to be enrolled.
Nelson took the boys into his confidence, and their sympathy was aroused. He suggested that each man present do his best by letter or otherwise to enlist other clerks in the movement. Not only names but signatures were to be collected and pasted in the record book. Nothing was to be done that would put an instrument of destruction in the hands of head office. All letters were to be addressed to Evan Nelson, Hometon, Ontario. He wrote the post-office there to hold his mail for further orders.
The "organizers"—they grinned as they applied the term to each other—spent two nights among the Victoria clerks, who agreed to take charge of Vancouver Island, then departed for Vancouver. There it took them three days and nights to work things up. They got a heap of circulars printed, with the following titles: "What the Bank Did to Me;" "Why Are You a Bankclerk?"; "Bank Union"; "Why Does Head Office Resent Co-operation of Clerks?"; and others, all by "X. Bankclerk." Printed matter was left in the hands of every man who wrote his name in the record book. Head office might get hold of a circular, but what could they do about it?
After finishing Vancouver, Nelson and Henty turned their attention to towns and villages. They carried with them, after less than a fortnight's work, about fifty letters of introduction to clerks all over the Dominion; that bundle was going to increase twenty-fold before they reached Halifax.
Small towns were easy; the boys sometimes did two and three a day. A. P. proved to be a whirlwind talker when he got warmed up to it. He parted from Evan at Sicamous Junction, and went down the Okanagan Valley. Evan went on to Revelstoke and worked the Arrow Lakes. In two weeks they met at Penticton, as glad to see each other as if they had been separated for years. They had many funny incidents to relate and plenty of success to discuss. The ball was rolling even faster than they had expected.
It was Sunday. They walked through the pretty streets of Penticton, enjoying the splendor of an Okanagan day. By and by they passed a graveyard. A man and woman were standing beside one of the graves; they looked up at the boys, but seemed not to recognize either of them. Evan turned pale, momentarily, then walked up to the man and woman. She wept when he told her who he was, and she related to him the story of a girl who had loved too young; who had faded and contracted consumption, back in Huron County, Ontario. They had brought her out to the mountain valleys, hoping the air would cure her, but she must have been too far gone.
In the evening, while Henty was writing letters, Evan went out for a walk. He wandered along a back street until he came again to the cemetery. A greybird sang its sweet song to him—but not only to him. Evan was thrilled with the sad beauty of that song, and of the Song of Life. Until the sun's rays had disappeared and the little greybird's singing was done, he sat, alone, beside Lily's grave.