CHAPTER XX.
HIGH FINANCE AND PROMOTING.
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?"
"Am I going 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 to get money. My chance came. The cash was short one thousand dollars one day—my cash. 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 they have to? Why do they 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 the public'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." How was 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 bank individually, he is mistaken. But men in any trade or calling can make themselves necessary to an employer collectively by 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 they could strike.
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.