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