“But you don’t mean to tell me that the bank is unsafe? Man, man, it means ruin to hundreds of our friends!”
He spoke in an impassioned way, but at the same time he felt more himself; the vague horror had grown less.
“Hear me out, sir; hear me out,” said Thickens slowly. “Years ago, sir, I began to doubt, and then I doubted myself, and then I doubted again, but even then I couldn’t believe. Doubts are no use to a man like me, sir; he must have figures, and figures I couldn’t get to prove it, sir. I must be able to balance a couple of pages, and then if the balance is on the wrong side there’s something to go upon. It has taken years to get these figures, but I’ve got them now.”
“Thickens, you are torturing me with this slow preamble.”
“For a few minutes, sir,” said the clerk pathetically, “for an hour. It has tortured me for years. Listen, sir. I began to doubt—not Dixons’ stability, but something else.”
The vague horror began to increase again, and Christie Bayle’s hands grew more damp.
“I have saved a little money, and that and my writings were in the bank. I withdrew everything. Cowardly? Dishonest? Perhaps it was; but I doubted, sir, and it was my little all. Then you’ll say, if I had these doubts I ought to have spoken. If I had been sure perhaps I might; but I tell you, sir, they were doubts. I couldn’t be false to my friends though, and where here and there they’ve consulted me about their little bits of money I’ve found out investments for them, or advised them to buy house property. A clergyman for whom I changed a cheque one day, said it would be convenient for him to have a little banking account with Dixons’, and I said if I had an account with a good bank in London I wouldn’t change it. Never change your banker, I said.”
“Yes, Thickens, you did,” said the curate eagerly, “and I have followed your advice. But you are keeping me in suspense. Tell me, is there risk of Dixons’ having to close their doors?”
“No, no, sir; it’s not so bad as that. Old Mr Dixon is very rich, and he’d give his last penny to put things straight. Sir Gordon Bourne is an honourable gentleman—one who would sacrifice his fortune so that he might hold up his head. But things are bad, sir, bad; how bad I don’t know.”
“But, good heavens, man! your half-yearly balance-sheets—your books?”