THE POST-OFFICE SAVINGS BANK.
My nephew Rupert has been spending part of his Easter holidays with me. There is nothing like a boy of fifteen for adding an atmosphere to a house—in which term I include a garden. It is a special atmosphere, hard to define, but quite unmistakable when you have once lived in it. It is compounded of football, cricket, hockey—these are not actual, but conversational—of visits to the stables, romps with dogs in a library, tousled hair, muddy trousers, a certain contempt for time, the loan of my collar-stud, an insatiable desire to look through the back volumes of Punch, long rides on a bicycle and an irresistible tendency of ink to the fingers, presumably caused by the terrible duty of writing letters to parents. There may be other ingredients, but these are the chief. I am bound to add that he is a very amiable boy, with a strong sense of humour, and that he associates on very friendly terms with the little girls, his cousins, who form the majority of this household, it being quite understood that, for the time, they become boys while he remains what he is.
The other morning Rupert evidently had something on his mind. He made various half-hearted and thoroughly unsuccessful efforts to leave the room, twiddled his cap in his hands, tripped over the rug and finally spoke.
"Thanks awfully, Uncle Harry, for lending me your bicycle."
"That's all right," I said. "You're very welcome to it. It's a good thing for it to be used."
"Yes," he said, "but I shan't want it again."
"Tired of it?" I said. "Well, there's no compulsion."
"Oh, I know that—thanks awfully—but it isn't that. It's a ripping bicycle. I should like to ride it for ever, but——"
"Well, what is it? Out with it."
"I've got one of my own."
"One of your own!" I said. "How's that? You hadn't got one yesterday."
"No, but I've got one now. I bought it this morning at Hickleden. There's a bicycle shop there, and I heard there was a good bicycle for sale cheap, so I went over this morning and had a ride on it, and it suited me splendidly, so I bought it, and I've got it here."
"Bought it?" I said. "That's all very well; but how did you pay for it?"
"That," he said, "is where all the bother comes in."
"It generally does," I said. "Either you've got the money, and then it seems such a waste; or you haven't got it, and then it's a lifetime of misery. Debt, my boy, is an awful thing."
"Don't rag, Uncle Harry; I've got the money all right."
"Then be a man and shell out."
"Yes, but that's just what I can't do. It's this way: the price of the bicycle is five pounds seventeen and sixpence."
"And a very good price too."
"It's got three gears and a lamp and everything complete. Well, I've got three pounds ten in the Post-Office Savings Bank. I put it in in London."
"That's a good beginning, anyhow."
"Yes, and Aunt Mary gave me a pound for my birthday, and I put that in at the post-office here yesterday. It's better not to keep pounds in your pocket."
"Quite right," I said; "we have now got to four pounds ten."
"And Grandma sent me a pound this morning in a postal-order."
"We're all but up to it now," I said. "The excitement is becoming intense."
"Isn't it? And I've got the rest in shillings and sixpences and coppers."
"Away you go, then, and pay for the bicycle."
"Ah, but it isn't as easy as all that. I can't get the money out of the Post-Office."
"What," I said—"they won't let you have your own money? They calmly take the savings of a lifetime and then refuse to give them up?"
"I went round there this morning and they said I'd put the money in in London and there were various formalities to be gone through before I could draw it out here."
"The official mind," I said, "delights in technicalities. Let us see how you stand:—
To save you from the silly game of playing drakes and ducks
You banked the cash in Middlesex—but asked for it in Bucks.
Or we could put it in this way:—
In order not to spend it all in lollipops and toffees
You gave it to the P. M. G. to keep it in his office.
Or in this way:—
You bought a three-gear bicycle because you had a will for it,
And now you've gone and fetched the thing and cannot pay the bill for it.
Rupert, you're in the cart."
"By Jove, Uncle Harry," he said in an awestruck tone, "that's poetry."
"Is it?" I said. "I just threw it off."
"Oh, yes, it's poetry all right. It's got rhymes, you know."
"Rupert," I said, "let us come back to plain prose and consider your desperate financial situation. You cannot get your three pounds ten."
"No, not yet."
"And Aunt Mary's pound?"
"They said that, being holiday time, that wouldn't have got to headquarters yet."
"Gracious goodness," I said, "I never knew a savings bank had so many pitfalls. The whole thing is too complicated for my mind."
"It isn't really complicated," said Rupert. "It's quite plain; but perhaps if you put it into poetry you'll understand it better."
"Rupert," I said, "let us have no sarcasms. The thing is too serious for that. You possess your grandmother's pound in a postal-order and assorted coins to the amount of seven and sixpence, total one pound seven and six, to pay for a bicycle costing five pounds seventeen and sixpence. In short, you are a bankrupt."
"But I shall get the money."
"That is what they all say."
Eventually the matter was arranged and the bicycle man was satisfied. Rupert's correspondence with the Post Office still continues. But his faith in that institution has received a severe shock.
R. C. L.
"The Rev. C. A. Brereton has presented to the St. Pancras Guardians a donkey for the use of the children at Leavesden Poor Law Schools, and a member of the Board has presented an A B C time-table."—Daily News.
Anonymous Benefactor (when the secret of his name leaks out): "No, no, don't thank me.... It was last year's."
Headlines to adjoining columns in The Toronto Daily Star:—
| "Mayor to call meeting to discuss Scripture." | "Mayor calls 'Globe's' report a 'blasted lie.'" |
These Mayors lead a life full of variety.
