A Canadian Bankclerk

by Jack Preston

CHAPTER XVIII.

IN THE COUNTRY OF OUR COUSINS.

Hall's lawn was decorated with Japanese lanterns. The little Mt. Alban boys who passed in the dusk wondered if the time would ever come in their lives when they should be eligible for a real garden-party. Such a wondrous condition seemed very far off, like Heaven. And the little girls who passed peeked through the hedge, like fairies seeking admittance to a nymph gathering. There was no music as yet, for the evening had scarcely set in, but the tables were set and the lanterns threw a glimmer over the flower-beds and through the trees.

The party was, ostensibly, a welcome to the newly-married couple, James and Julia Watersea Simpson; actually it was to announce that Miss Sadie Hall had returned from Hamilton to accept the boredom of Mt. Alban again for a little season.

It is not for this bank story to enter upon details of that garden party; to spy on the sons of villagers behind dark balsams devouring cigarettes borrowed from the village cut-up; to play dictagraph to the gossips, or to hang around where the girls are chattering. However, there were characters at that lawn social more or less concerned in our story, and of whom we therefore ought to make mention.

Those characters occupied a place of prominence at the function, being seated close to Miss Hall herself. She was paying them flattering attention.

"Mr. Perry," she said, smilingly, "who would have thought you were going to turn out such a sport?"

Far from being offended, Porter grinned gleefully, and incidentally wondered where the money was coming from to pay the rent of the roadster that had brought him up to see his Hometon girl visiting in Mt. Alban.

"Well," he replied, "I never was what you'd call a willy, eh?"

"No," said Sadie, "but—well, you were so young, you know."

Porter's "girl" was talking in a low tone with a new bank junior who was beginning to realize what a juvenile and unromantic affair school had been. Sadie nudged Perry.

"You want to watch out," she whispered, so that the others could hear, "or you'll be losing your friend."

Frankie Arling blushed. The junior did too.

"N-n-no danger," he stammered, without knowing exactly what he said.

"Why no danger?" asked Miss Hall, anxious to say something interesting.

For answer the junior looked at Perry with the deference due a teller. Porter pouted—not like a child, but like a pigeon.

"Have some ice-cream, girls," he suggested, determined to convert the junior's respect into awe.

No one declining, the "porter" played a part long before assigned him in the Mt. Alban bank, and brought back a tray that had cost him eighty cents.

"Do you remember, Miss Hall," he said, to still a beating of the heart occasioned by the admiring glances of two strange girls in the circle, "the social we had here just two years ago?"

"Oh, yes," replied Sadie, after pretending to look backward through a great many sumptuous entertainments; "yes."

"All the boys were here. There was Bill Watson, myself, Mr. Castle, Nel—"

"Yes, that reminds me," interrupted Sadie, "I saw Mr. Nelson on the street in Hamilton the other day, and met him again in a cafe. Both times he was with—"

Sadie hesitated. Frankie was looking astonishedly at her.

"Why, Ev—Mr. Nelson hasn't been moved, has he?"

The question and the expression of voice behind it seemed to give Sadie an idea.

"I forgot—he comes from your town, does he not, Miss Arling?"

"Yes."

"Who was he with?" asked Perry, stupidly, "anyone we know?"

"Why—yes. Hazel Morton."

Frankie's question was not answered; but now she did not care to have it answered. She had been in Mt. Alban three days, therefore she had heard all about the Morton girl leaving a nice home to "be in a city where she can act as she likes,"—which, Mt. Alban females ruled, was wickedly.

It takes a girl, and especially one of Sadie Hall's stamp, to notice embarrassment or disappointment in another girl. Frankie was rather silent and downcast. She never talked much at any time, but even to Perry, with whom she was sometimes quite speechless, she seemed more than commonly quiet during the remainder of the evening. Of course, Porter may have been considerably on the alert.

"Is she related to him or anything?" Sadie asked Perry, on the side.

"Well—no," he hesitated; "their families are old friends, though."

"I could tell her something very interesting about him," replied Sadie; "he's been dismissed from the bank."

"What!"

"Sh-sh! Alfred wrote me about it. And that's not the worst of it—he's suspected of being a crook."

"For G—'s sake!" murmured Perry; and thought a while.

"Had I better tell her?" asked Sadie.

"I guess so; she'll soon find out, anyway."

Miss Hall found Frankie admiring a flower-bed, lonesomely, and approached her with the news she had. She knew that her Alfred hated Evan, who in his turn hated Alfred, and it was quite a satisfaction to circulate the truth about an enemy when it was unpleasant. To give her credit, Sadie was rather sorry she had done it, when she saw the effect produced on Frankie.

The following day Miss Hall met the girl whom Frankie Arling, of Hometon, had been visiting.

"Where's your friend?" she asked.

"Gone," replied the other girl. "She took it into her head to go home on the noon train, and we couldn't coax her out of it. I think she was lonesome."

"No doubt," replied Sadie, abstractedly.

Mrs. Nelson sat reading a letter, with tears in her eyes; another letter lay on the table. The one she read was from a woman-friend in Toronto. One paragraph of it puzzled Mrs. Nelson; it read: "One of the bankboys who boards here told me that your son had been discharged from the S—— Bank on suspicion. I think my boarder has made a mistake; he declares it was Evan Nelson of Hometon, though. Let me hear from you, Caroline, for I'm anxious to know that there has been a blunder."

The letter on the table was from Evan; one of those garden compositions sent through Sam Robb. It spoke about health, a good time and good board.

Frankie and Lou entered the kitchen where Mrs. Nelson sat in misery. She showed them the letter from Evan and the other one from Toronto. Frankie was silent, but Lou exclaimed:

"Why, mother! I'm surprised! Do you think for a minute that Evan would deceive us like that?"

"I can't believe it, dear; but what am I to do?"

"There's a mistake somewhere," replied Lou; "why, even if they have fired him it's all a mistake. 'On suspicion'—imagine! Why brother wouldn't take a—a—"

The thought was too much for Lou. What with lonesomeness for her brother and anger at the mere thought of anyone suspecting him, she gave way to a June storm.

Frankie was not free from signs of lamentation, either. She filled up more and more until there were raindrops from that quarter, too, and Sadie Hall's story came out.

Mrs. Nelson was overcome. Why had not her boy written about the trouble?

"Oh, Louie," she cried, "it's terrible! They suspect him of stealing! And he's discharged! Whatever are we to do?"

Lou raised her lovely face and forced a smile.

"Mother, dear," she said, "you know what a fellow Evan is. He doesn't want us to know about it until the thing is straightened out. It must straighten out, because we know he isn't guilty."

Such is a sister's logic. Mrs. Nelson telephoned her husband to come up at once. He came, and was told the news.

"Good!" he said.

"Why, George, how can you say that? They've ruined our boy."

Mrs. Nelson was taking it badly.

"Tut tut," said her husband, kindly, "don't get all worked up about it. He'll come around. There'll be an explanation from him some of these days. Jerusalem! but I'm glad he's out of it. I knew he'd get a lesson. Blast the banks!"

After this mild explosion Nelson walked to the water-pail and drank a dipper of water.

"But what's he doing in Hamilton?" asked the mother.

"That's only a fifty-cent trip from Toronto," answered Nelson; "the lad was probably over for a boat-ride."

"Well, what's he doing now?"

"I've got no more idea than you have, Carrie. But he won't do anything desperate, be sure of that. If he gets down-and-out he knows we're here."

At last Mrs. Nelson was consoled. She made her husband wire Evan at Toronto to come home. The telegraph operator surmised enough from the telegram to invent a story; it was supplemented by whisperings from Mt. Alban; and eventually the town gabs were wondering where Evan could have deposited the $50,000 he stole.

Besides the telegram, George Nelson sent a letter, telling his son not to worry, and enclosing a cheque for fifty dollars. Frankie Arling, in her little room at home, also wrote a letter:

"Dear Evan,—We have heard that you are out of the bank. I think you were foolish to ever go into it. There are ridiculous rumors floating around that you were dismissed on suspicion. I know they're not true, and everybody else does; but still we are surprised you didn't write home something about it.

"I don't suppose Hometon matters very much to you any more. The town is not so dull as it used to be, though. There is a new bunch of bankboys here, and we have plenty of good times. Mr. Perry rents a car occasionally and gives us girls a ride. He surely is a good-hearted chap. We all like him.

"You will be surprised when I tell you that he has proposed to me. I don't think he'll ever make much money, but he'll always be free with what he has, and mighty good to a girl. He wants me to visit in London during summer vacation; he lives there. If I go he says he'll see that I meet a nice crowd. I haven't asked mother yet.

"I guess you won't be coming home for vacation this summer, now you're out of the bank. It wouldn't be like you to come back a failure. It seems funny that you shouldn't have got along in banking as well as Porter: you are just as smart as he is. That fellow surprises me sometimes, though! I've been at him to quit the bank and go into something else. He shouldn't be proposing on six hundred dollars a year, should he? Well, good-bye. Yours sincerely,

"FRANK."

After signing the letter Frankie dropped the pen and rested her chin on her hands. She gazed into space until the tears rolled down her cheeks; then she hid her face lest the looking-glass might see her.

"To think," she murmured, "that Evan sees girls like that!"

Girl-like, she had said nothing about Hamilton or Hazel Morton in the letter. She wanted to wound. Perry had helped her make Evan jealous once before. She was afraid mention of Hamilton would call forth explanations from Evan, and she didn't want him to explain. Even though he were innocent, she felt that she must hate him now, for she was jealous.

While the Mt. Alban garden party was in progress Evan attended one in New York—the Madison Square Garden party. There were no Chinese lanterns in evidence (although there were some Chinese), and the creatures who participated were not particularly young or care-free: there were the burning lights of Broadway and the Square, and wretched figures huddling on, beside, and under, the benches.

"And this is New York!" murmured Evan.

The melancholy sight fascinated him; he found it hard to leave Madison Gardens, although the White Way called to the youth and love of gaiety within him. He had never before seen so plainly the line of demarcation between sunlight and shadow. The startling proximity of riches to poverty, gladness to sadness, shocked him; he had a vague fear of something, he did not know what. Maybe it was the readjustment to come.

It is quite evident, from his loitering, that Evan was not worrying about himself. He had a job, therefore he sat and pitied those who did not have—and who did not want—work. Realizing at last that it was folly to pity without aiding, and that he was too poor to actually aid the wretches around him, he wandered across to Fifth Avenue and stared in the windows of a book store.

He had come to "town" (his room was in Brooklyn) with the intention of seeing a play, but the Madison garden party had taken away his breath, and left him without a desire to squander money on himself, when he had deliberately held it back from the hungry and the naked. Further reflection brought about a reaction in his mind, and eventually he compromised with himself by going to a ten-cent picture show. Afterwards he took subway and surface cars back to Eastern Parkway and found himself sitting thoughtfully in his little room.

Like a writer who gets "copy" on the streets and fixes it up in his garret, Evan thought the environment of his room would help him to arrange the impressions a trip to town had created, but—again like the writer—he found his head so full of notions that he could not think, and he understood perfectly that ideas apart from thought were poor things. So he turned in, bidding Madison Square and memories of Hometon good-night.

Quite early next morning he arose, fresh and eager, all vain philosophizing gone, prepared to hold his own in a big city. New York had not, from the moment he landed, frightened him. Like the child that looks into the fire, he saw only wonders. He had his health back, he knew he was a good bookkeeper, board in New York was cheap—why worry? He hadn't worried, and he had got work first crack! It is not hard to get a job in New York, unless you are in rags; but it is hard to get a good salary.

For a week now Evan had been engaged. The cashier, Phillips, told him he was going to be a good man for the firm. Phillips did not ask him where he had received his training: New Yorkers have no time for life-stories or autobiographies. Evan was surprised that they did not ask him more about himself, and for recommendations. Instead of saying: "What are your references, sir?" the boss had said: "What can you do?"

"I'm a bookkeeper."

"What experience?"

"Two years and a half in Canadian banking."

"Sounds good. What made you come over here?"

"Like every young Canadian," replied Evan, "I wanted to see New York."

Conscious of no guilt, he felt bold and spoke without fear.

"Well," replied the employer, "we'll give you a chance."

"Do you want a recommendation?" asked the Canadian.

"Nah," grunted the boss; "what good is that? If you can deliver the goods, all right; if you can't, out you go. As for your honesty, we depend on our ability to read character; after all, wouldn't you rather have your own opinion of a fellow than somebody else's? If ever you get to be cashier here we'll know you all right; not from Toronto references, but from daily observation. We learn to spot honesty here in Noo Yo'k: it's so dawn rare."

Evan smiled in spite of a desire to look solemn. He liked the "old man," and knew work with him would be pleasant. The office staff he liked, too, for they were free and easy, though mightily busy. It was a great change from the bank. No one seemed to be afraid of anybody else. The cashier was no bullier; although there was occasional friction, there was no subordination.

Everybody worked fast, but, for Evan, there was not the strain of a Canadian city bank. He knew there was no Alfred Castle watching him, and he knew that if a ledger went wrong requiring night work, the man who worked on it would be paid for every minute of overtime. Already he made fifteen dollars a week, and that was just as big as fifteen dollars would be in Toronto—it was bigger; it would buy more food and pleasure in New York than in any other city on the continent. Evan found it ample.

"If you keep on," said the cashier one day, "we'll be giving you more work to do."

Evan was surprised, and gratified. "I'll keep on," he said.

A few days after determining to keep on he asked for a half-day off to humor a headache. He was allowed an afternoon's leave.

On the way down to the ocean beach, where he hoped to soothe his palpitating cerebellum, he called at the Brooklyn room and found two letters and a telegram awaiting him. They had been forwarded by Sam, who had scribbled on the back of the telegram: "I knew you would have it in a few hours or I would have re-despatched the message." Evan smiled at his mother's anxiety—a letter had gone to her explaining everything; he had told her he was afraid his father would want to fight the bank in the courts, so he had kept the matter quiet until another position turned up. "No one ever wins in a suit against the bank," he said, "and Dad needs his money."

The cheque from home for fifty dollars looked good to Evan, but he hesitated before accepting it. Suddenly, however, he recollected a few little Ontario debts, and slipping the cheque in his pocket he thought what an unbusinesslike father he had. He sent a special letter of thanks, just as he would have done to any benefactor; he was not of the persuasion that everything is coming to the man who happens to be a son.

As a child saves the best bite of cake till the last, the New York clerk stowed Frankie's letter in his pocket until he reached Coney Island. He opened it as he sat on the sand, not far away from a group of attractive girls. Frankie's mention of Perry caused Evan to take note of a chilly breeze that was blowing over the surf. When the letter persisted and persisted in Porter, he suddenly thought the sun was mighty hot for June.

"Let her have him," the reader muttered; "she's welcome to him!"

Evan tried to make himself believe he had meant to say: "Let him have her," but that was not what he had said, and he knew it. He knew, too, that he could not coax himself to say it.

"She makes me mad," he muttered again; "what does she see in that mutt? Confound my head, what's the matter with it, anyway?"

Tearing the letter to bits, he ran into the surf. The girls had been watching him read and had been laughing over the expression on his face. They followed him into the water, and one of them managed to slip over the ropes beside him. The others made a fuss; and, not being used to swimming flirtations, Evan thought a real accident had happened. He bravely swam under the rope and rescued the water-nymph. An hour later, when they were all acquainted, he discovered that she could out-do him thrice over as a swimmer. But he was glad to know somebody in big, busy New York, and Ethel Harris was both pretty and smart.

Thus it was that the ex-bankclerk came to pass over Frankie Arling's letter, which had hurt him, and to take an interest in the pleasures of the present. Frankie and Perry, like the Past, were gone into eclipse.

In the course of months Evan became fairly familiar with New York, and with Miss Harris. The city stood scrutiny, and the girl—she was mighty fine. There was this difference between Ethel and New York, however: she was fathomable, as a girl should not be, and the city was not. Madison Square always reminded Evan of a dream he had dreamt in every fever of childhood—a nightmare in which a great wheel ran smoothly and little wheels crookedly; ran until the sleeper's brain was ready to burst with a sort of frenzy.

The people of New York turned out to be like the people of Toronto—and Hometon. Some were clever, and some were ignorant and dull. All of them were trying to make a living (except the predatory class) just as the farmers in Ontario were. Young men fell in love with girls and married them (occasionally), three meals a day were eaten, and sleep was popular.

And yet there was something about New York that was new and mysterious; its life was extraordinarily exhilarating. So many ten-thousands went to work and came from work every day at the same hours, it was like gazing upon the Creation to watch them. They lost their individuality, their human, insignificant (?) individuality, in the mass, and became a part of Adam's seed. Country people were less interesting than these New Yorkers, because country people were more independent. New Yorkers never looked at each other, but they felt each other; the atoms of the great mass, though separated by never-closing spaces, were held together by an eternal potentiality. There was a sympathy in the mass of city-folk, unspoken and even unobserved by many, but mighty—it was much more wonderful than the simple, verbal friendship between Jake Zeigler and Mat Carrol, neighbors at Bill's Corners. The power that held the atoms of the great mass together was the very same that gave each atom its individuality. Evan was impressed with the magnetism of New York, but he did not comprehend its strength. He came across atoms that had strayed off gradually, and been drawn back like lightning; but he understood but vaguely how the force operated, and why. In fact, who does understand?

The life he led, which was the New York life, kept the Canadian ex-clerk stimulated to a point beyond his power of physical resistance; he worked harder than the cashier wanted him to work. Those crowds that surged in every thoroughfare seemed to be behind him pushing him, and he could not take things easy. The strain was telling on him, though he tried to convince himself that it was not. Probably the lure of a great city would have held him up to the point of a break-down, had not a letter from his father set him thinking thoughts that changed his life once more.

"When you build a house, Evan," said the letter, "you always want to have a solid foundation. So it is with a career. I hope you will, after a while, find your niche—I'm quite sure you have not found it yet. But don't worry—you'll get there: you have Grandpa Nelson in you.

"P.S.—I forgot to tell you that the bank's guarantee company and the general manager of the bank itself have dunned me for your part of the Banfield loss, fifty dollars. I laughed at them and told them to sue."

The postscript took Evan's mind back. It caused a burning in him that he knew must some day flare up. Unable to quench the resentment that filled him he bought some fruit and ate it as he walked along Wall Street, westward.

"Great heavens!" he muttered, waving his hand toward the marble halls of finance around him, "my country's got you backed into East River when it comes to a combination of Trusts!"

A few minutes after muttering this soliloquy he was in the crowds on Broad Street, directly opposite the Stock Exchange. A newsy thrust a paper into his hand, which he took and glanced at automatically. The first thing to catch his eye was a small headline over a news-item in one corner of the front page:

"CANADIAN BANKCLERK SUICIDES."

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.