A Canadian Bankclerk

by Jack Preston

CHAPTER XV.

FIRED.

The month with Robb was nearly up, and Evan was beginning to look for another lodging. He had a suspicion that his old friend was putting himself out by entertaining another at four dollars a week. He knew it would be useless to mention the matter to Robb; he decided that the only thing for him to do was to vacate, then watch his chance to serve the ex-manager a good turn some day. He really believed Robb was paying Mrs. Greig extra on account of the accommodation.

As they sat, now, talking over trivialities, Evan told his friend that he had found a new boarding-house, which, of course, he had not. The ex-manager drew a breath deep enough to be a sigh.

"I guess it's better, Evan," he said, thoughtfully; "but I hate to see you go. Not only because I will miss your company, but I would like to knock the bank-bug out of your head. That was one reason why I wanted you here in the first place. I haven't been lucky in turning you up a job anywhere else just yet, but I'm going to get one for you, and going to hold you to your promise."

"If you can show me," answered Nelson, "where I'll be better off, it's me for the new job."

The small increase had not affected Evan seriously.

"I've been showing you all along that you couldn't be worse off than you are, haven't I?" said Robb.

Evan was not sure; he had had no business experience outside of the bank; naturally the only job he had ever had looked good to him.

The day after the increases Sam Robb had been off duty again; but the accountant had said nothing, considering, perhaps, that the Mt. Alban ex-manager had been "called" substantially enough in the reduction of his salary.

Robb had been quiet since his latest rebuke, and since the drunk following it had not been absent from duty a single day. All the same, he had been drinking steadily, quietly. Nelson often felt like doing something about it; he had no idea what. Always when the impulse came to him he closed his half-opened lips, leaned back in his chair, and kept his troubled thoughts to himself.

May was past her prime. The "Island" was becoming more popular every night, and the Sunday crowds at Scarboro grew rapidly. Robb and Evan walked down University Avenue to the bank.

"Well, we'll have a rest to-morrow," said Robb. "I'm getting to be an old man, and as long as I remember we've celebrated the 24th."

"I guess we always will remember Queen Victoria," replied Evan, "but I'm going to work tomorrow. Jack has to transfer his ledger, and I promised to help him."

Robb looked daggers at a robin.

"There you are," he said, in a soft, ominous tone; "that's the bank. They give a fellow a post that keeps him going night and day, Sundays and holidays, knowing that if he gets up against it absolutely, some other mark will chip in and help him out. They get the greatest possible labor out of the least possible staff at the lowest possible figure."

Evan smiled, and repeated another bank chestnut handed down from time immemorial among the staff as a valuable exotic intended to satisfy the ambitions of those who had them:

"That's supposed to be good business, isn't it—economy?"

"Economy be hanged!" said Robb, "and good business be ——! Good business, my dear boy, is giving reasonable value. Whether you are a farmer, a merchant, an employe or an employer, good business consists in delivering the goods, or paying cost of delivery, as the case may be. One of the most valuable articles on earth is Labor, and when a man buys it a decent price should be paid. The Bible is a wise old book; doesn't it say that 'the laborer is worthy of his hire'?"

Robb spat against the curbing and went on.

"Do you know why banks build so many fine structures throughout the country, and how it is they can afford to purchase the best locations in all the cities?"

"I have often wondered," said Evan, meekly.

"I'll tell you: it's because of dividends that can't be declared. The banks' profits are so high they couldn't begin to share them in dividends; the public wouldn't stand for it. So they buy property, build buildings, and pile up capital. At the same time they are starving their clerks."

"But," said Evan, feeling obliged to stand up for the institution that gave him employment, whether that employment was respectably paid for or not, "isn't it up to the clerk? If he is willing to work for a certain salary the bank isn't going to throw money at him."

Robb, to Evan's surprise, laughed heartily, then sneered.

"My dear Boob," he said, "they've got you by the whiskers all right..... Now look here: the bank hangs a great big bluff from beginning to end. It tells juniors they will be well paid after a while—as soon as they are experienced. But it doesn't fulfil that promise. When the junior becomes a senior he is told that he would have succeeded if he had done certain things. Isn't that what they told me?"

They were at the bank. The day before a holiday is no time for distracting thoughts. Evan went in and concentrated on his work, and Robb on his. The conversation they had had must come up for future consideration. That is the way with bankclerk "consideration": it is always future.

Four weeks had made Evan fairly familiar with the ways of a city office. On the cash book he had a good opportunity to see the workings of the entire system, for the cash book is a concentration of all business; it is an itemized general ledger. Evan was rushed from morning till night, and worked many a night. Yet he did not find that in the routine which satisfied his intellect. He knew himself to be a machine; not a creative machine—there is no such thing—but a reconstructive instrument. He was a meat-grinder, a fanning-mill, after that a phonograph—nothing more. Yet, from sheer physical and superficially mental activity he was, in a measure, satisfied with his lot. He derived satisfaction from a comparison of his working ability with that of other clerks. He should have compared himself with a star in the sky instead of a knot-hole in the fence. There is a ridiculous, childish satisfaction in measuring one's self by an inferior, or even a peer. It is an ignoble source of content. But, aside from flattering himself into a species of content, in that way, Evan sated his natural ambitions in continuous work. The laborer is reconciled to his place because he really gets something done, though it be to another's benefit almost entirely: Evan knew he could not work so hard without accomplishing something. He did accomplish something—for the bank.

Evan Nelson was wearing himself out, body and brain, for much less than a living wage. The experience he got was no longer of value to him; every day's work was a repetition of the previous day's work. He had no time for study or advancement of any sort. For what then was he working?—the salary. Evan did not realize it, but, he worked night and day for that seven or eight dollars per week. It was all he got, therefore it alone must have been his reward. And year after year in the bank, it would be the same way. If the business did not keep faith with him, if it did not reward him according to his works, in 1907, would it do so in 1908 or 1912? No; it would keep up its policy of delusion and perpetuate for ever and ever its vain promises. Then, some day, it could, with impunity, turn on him and break him.

"Good morning, Nelson," said Key, coming to call; "what time did you get balanced last night?"

"I had a first shot," replied Nelson.

"Hooray!" cried Key.

"At ten o'clock," added Evan, grinning. "I couldn't get things rounded up for a trial till then."

"Oh," said Key, rubbing his chin. "They ought to give you some return work.... How are you feeling these days?"

"Just average," answered Evan; "I had to cut out the cigarettes. I never smoked more than three or four a day at the most, but I find that I have fewer headaches when I leave them alone."

"Fewer headaches," repeated Key, in his peculiar way.

Evan smiled, and dived into the calling, drawing the time-worn battered old Key in with him. After a while the little man said:

"I suppose you count those headaches part of the game."

"Yes," and another chestnut rolled to the floor, "every business has its drawbacks."

"And every horse has its hold-backs," said Key, wondering whether it would sound like a joke or a child-speech. When it seemed to be lost on Evan, he corrected: "I meant 'every jackass.'"

"I see," returned the cash-bookman, "you think I'm a jackass for letting the bank hold me back."

"Yep!"

"So does Mr. Robb."

Key rested his blue pencil on an amount and looked across at Evan.

"You think we're soreheads, don't you, Nelson? Maybe we are. But let me ask you something. Supposing you had worked twenty years in the bank, and then they gave you, with great show, a little branch down in New Brunswick; supposing you went there and found that the bank had practically no business because it wouldn't oblige the community, and you started to lend money on good security, believing that a bank should be an asset to, not a leech on, the country. Supposing you suddenly had the branch taken away from you, because you tried to make it, and were making it, a benefit to the community—and were sent back to a sweat-shop on reduced pay: then supposing a bright young fellow came into the branch with the dreams you used to dream yourself, when a boy—tell me, wouldn't you try to make him understand what a fool he was?"

For answer Evan asked a question:

"Is that what they did to you?"

"Yes, and that's what they've done to dozens of managers. Every other bank has done the same thing to some of its old stand-bys."

"Well," said Evan, "don't they do the same thing in other lines of business, in corporations and so on?"

"I hope not," replied Key, tearing a voucher with his pencil; "but even if they do that doesn't excuse the banks. I suppose all trusts pull off arbitrary stunts, but the bank trust is the only one I happen to have personal experience in."

"A fellow simply has to trust to luck, I suppose," replied Evan. "Some fellows seem to get along well enough in the bank."

Key grunted.

"There are two kinds that eventually get the best that the bank has—that's little enough: First, the willies with a pull, and second, the sissies who siss. The fellow with originality and get-up is choked off, sooner or later. He usually manages to offend head office early in his career, and the rest of his bank life is—like mine! There are occasional lucky ones, as you say; but personally I'm not very strong for charms and stars. A fellow who has nothing stronger than luck to bank on may make a good race-track tout or fortune heeler, but not a business man. Don't work for any corporation or at any job where you're, so far as the position itself is concerned, dispensable; unless you are necessary to your employer, whether he be a magnate or an acre of land, jump the job."

Castle was passing.

"Key," he said, in his falsetto-femina voice, "you're too slow at that calling. The clearing men need Nelson on a machine from now on. You'll have to do less talking and faster work."

The grey-haired clerk reddened, but said nothing, aloud. What he said under his breath was sulphur-tipped.

It seemed to Key that every time the boys took a minute off to discuss personal affairs or the world outside the bank, a jealous bank demon showed its teeth.

The sentiments of Robb and Key made quite an impression on Nelson, but he argued that where there was so much said against the bank there must be a good deal to be said in its favor. He might have used the same argument with reference to a national evil, for instance.

"Hey, Nelson!" called Marks of the C's, "are you nearly through there? We're in an awful mess here with the C—— Bank. Their clearing is balled every day."

"All right," replied the cash-book man, leaving a few odds and ends of his own work, "is it the Queen Street branch again?"

"Yes," said Cantel; "I think it's too near the Asylum grounds."

The savings man turned around and chuckled. "Mutt and Jeff get quite humorous at times," he said, pointing to tall Marks and short Cantel.

The paying-teller laughed, so did Willis and the cash-book man. There are moments of fun in a city bank, but they are brief and reactive. The boys never get acquainted to any extent. They rarely help each other out, either, for they all have their hands full, and every bit of extra work they do reacts on their own post at night, early mornings, or Sundays. Sometimes there is a utility man, but he either dies young or prays for a move to the Maritime Provinces, where he can recuperate in a summer resort.

"That's enough from you, Johnson," said Marks; "crawl into that pipe of a savings and close the cover, or we'll make you smell the leather down cellar."

"You call the savings a 'pipe,' do you? Say, Marks, you'd have seven kinds of delirium tremens if you smoked this pipe."

Cantel tore off a slip and looked up.

"Ninety cents out," he said. "Marks is familiar with seventy times seven snakes already, Johnsy. He's getting to the crocodile stage. Last night at the Gai—"

"Shut up, Cant," whispered Marks, frowning; "it isn't time for the great trump to sound, just yet."

"Who mentioned trumps?" inquired Jack Brower, one of the current ledgermen, who had come around to drum up "stuff."

The boys laughed in chorus.

"Hey, less noise out there," called Levison, already experiencing a "kick" from the laugh of a minute before.

Marks was about to waken Brower to a proper understanding when Charon popped around the paying-cage.

"Look here," he said sharply, "this noise has got to stop. What are you doing here, Brower? Can't they keep you in C's? What's the matter with the clearing anyway? ..... Nelson, I'm going to put this in your charge, and I want you to see that the ledgers have their stuff by ten-thirty at latest."

Thus another responsibility was loaded on the creaking shoulders of the cash-book man; but nothing was said of added remuneration. Every week or month, as a man increases his speed or loses his power of resisting imposition, he is screwed more and more tightly to the "wall," which, in banking, means a desk.

"Do you know what you are?" said Johnson to Evan, when the accountant had gone. "You're a darn idiot. Why don't you kick?"

"Aw, shut up," Marks butted in, "how's a fellow going to get out of it? Why, Johnsy, you'd have a hemorrhage if you ever let yourself dream of talking back to the accountant."

Mr. Charon might stop the noise, but he could never put an end to the conversation of the clearing men. They rattled on, like their adding machines, jabbing back and forth and getting off speeches that are never heard in vaudeville, but still turning out the figures at a rapid rate. They worked mechanically, and their minds had to find diversion. That it was not valuable diversion was due to the environment. In the first place the work was monotonous, and the mind naturally sought a channel of entertainment, rather than of thought; in the second place, one got accustomed to the line of talk popular with the boys and unless he mixed with them he was out of the swim and in a cold, silent current of his own.

Sometimes the diversion Evan permitted himself took the form of Frankie Arling. It was not often, now, that he thought of her seriously—that is, as his wife. Seven years was too long a time to look ahead. He could not, after a good many months in the world of business, realize Frankie as he had done in those old school-days; but he could still think of her, in an ideal way.

Would Frankie be proud of him if she could see him handling that mysterious jumble of figures called the "cash book?" He wondered how the "city" way, which he believed himself to be acquiring, would appeal to the sweet country girl. He smiled as he thought of summer vacation—not such a great while off—when he should go back to Hometon and—and what? He did not know. He couldn't carry back tales of success, for his salary was only four hundred dollars a year. He couldn't go back well dressed, because he was fifty dollars in debt to the bank, and owed a tailor's bill in Banfield.... Invariably thoughts of the girl he knew he loved brought him misery and despondency. Thoughts of home brought him little less. He might have known, from that, that either he or the bank was a failure; but a fellow of nineteen looks through a smoked glass. To say that Evan did not think is scarcely the fact. He did think, but spasmodically. The mind is a dual thing: the superficial mind can be employed on an adding machine and leave the thinking function free to operate in any direction; but before that is possible the superficial mind must be familiar with the object that engages it. It is not an easy matter to figure sterling exchange, for instance, and at the same time think about irrelevant things; but it is easy to run an adding machine, or even to add, and think simultaneously. On the cash book Evan found himself engaged in all kinds of work; on some of it he had to concentrate (although no "brain power" was necessary), while on some of it he worked mechanically. Whenever a period of serious dissatisfaction, brought on by something Robb or Key had said, troubled him, it was of short duration: something always broke into his mind and scattered the argument framing there. By the time he was free to resume the argument foreign thoughts had intervened, and his brain was in a muddle. Before the muddle could be dissipated by a cold point of common sense, something else had come along. And so things went. So the days and weeks went.

When Evan got a night off, sick and tired of struggling with figures and fancies, he indulged in some of the exciting amusements of the city, which were new and attractive to him, and in "quiet little games." He was slipping into a rut, and probably he would have stayed there for months or even years, like hundreds of other young Canadian bankboys, had not the poverty of his existence driven him to the temporary form of relief known among bankclerks as "kiting."

"Bankclerks are always hard up." This is one of the public's chestnuts. It is not a horse-chestnut, however; this one is digestible. It is a fact. The reason is, chiefly—poor pay. It is absolutely necessary for a fellow to either get money from home (even after three years' service) or to borrow and fly kites. Kite-flying is the last resort. It is simply a matter of cashing a cheque on your own bank through some other bank whose clerks are known to you, or through some outlying branch of your own bank, and keeping that cheque out (keeping the kite flying) until pay-day comes and you can deposit to meet it. There is nothing dishonest in the transaction: customers float cheques all the time. The bank cannot lose through the kiting of clerks; only tellers who cash the kite can lose, and they know the "flyer" before taking a chance.

Sometimes a floated cheque floats home sooner than expected, and then there is some sudden high-financing to be done.

It was the custom in Evan's bank for the accountant to look after all clearing items on which exchange had been added by other banks. When the clearing men on the machines registered a bill with exchange they laid it aside for the accountant to see. The clearing of that 23rd of May was very heavy, and everybody was rushed.

"Here are your exchange amounts," said Marks, turning his bunch over to Cantel.

"Do you want them now, Nelson?" asked Cantel, "or shall I rush them up to the accountant and give them to you later?"

"Take them up," said Evan, puzzling over a badly-figured cheque, "and wait for them. He's been holding them back lately, and the ledger-keepers are developing claws."

When Cantel came back he had the exchange items, but he seemed thoughtful, and looked askance at Evan.

"Nelson," he whispered, "come here; I've got something coming.... Whose cheque do you suppose Charon kept back for further investigation?"

"Not mine from Creek Bend, was it?"

"You're on."

The cash-book man's face reddened.

"I didn't expect it in for three or four days yet," he said. "Dunn never would do a trick like that on me; he must have misunderstood."

Cantel laughed.

"I wouldn't take it so hard," he said; "everybody's doing it."

"I know," replied Evan, "but when I first came here Pen——"

"Forget it," said Cantel, turning to his work, "they need guys like you and me around here too much to kick over a kite."

So the "C" man thought. Every junior man seems to think that he is necessary to the bank. The older he grows the smaller he becomes in his own estimation, because in the bank's estimation. The bank understands the advantages of "depreciation" in stocks—and employes.

Before Evan could find a clerk who was willing or able to lend him enough to cover the cheque for eight dollars he had issued to pay board and buy a pair of shoes, Charon had set eyes on him from a distance and was beckoning to him.

The accountant had little glittering eyes. They shone out of his smooth, round face like boot-buttons from a lump of dough. He fixed them on the cash-book man.

"Mr. Nelson," he said politely, "I'm sorry to tell you that head office has just telephoned down and asked for your resignation."

"My resignation!"

"Yes."

"But Mr. Charon, you're not going——"

"It's not my doing at all," said Charon, interrupting; "anything you have to say had better be told to the manager."

Evan had never been introduced to the manager, but he walked into the big private office and started saying he scarcely knew what.

"Oh, are you Mr.—er—, the young man whom head office has asked to resign?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'm sorry I cannot do anything for you."

"But won't you tell me why I'm fired?"

The cash-book man gazed fiercely into the manager's eyes. A thought for his personal safety probably decided the pompous old gentleman to compromise a little.

"It's on account of that cheque you issued—and—and—"

"And what?"

"And that Banfield affair!"

The truth dawned on Evan. He stood for a moment oblivious of his surroundings, thinking of his father and mother and friends. He was suspected. It was worse than Robb had said: he was not only under disfavor, but under suspicion. Head office had only waited for a pretext to fire him.

"But I didn't take that money——" he began.

"Those are my instructions," replied the manager, turning to his work.

Evan felt sick. He tried to make the accountant talk, but all Charon would say was:

"You'll have to grin and bear it."

"Well, can I see the inspector?" asked Evan, in desperation.

"I wouldn't advise you to; it will do no good."

Turning away, the cash-book man entered a telephone booth and called up Castle.

"This is Mr. Nelson," he said, "of Banfield. Can I see you, sir?"

"No," snapped Castle; "I'm very busy."

"But I want to tell——"

The receiver clicked. Evan was aware of an answering sound somewhere within himself, as though the ties that bound him to honesty and good-faith had suddenly snapped.