Automatically his mind reverted to the work out there in the office waiting for him.
"Here I am, wasting time," he said, jokingly, "while two days' balances and a mess of other work are waiting for me. Is there anything else you want to speak about, Mr. Jones?"
The manager looked at him with eyes so unprofessional they might never have focused on anything so mean as a past-due bill, or a head office bull.
"Nelson," he said frankly, "you are the right sort of stuff to succeed. You will succeed in the bank: but take my advice and get out of it. If you stick you will some day be a city manager—but get out. How long have you been in the service?"
"Almost two years."
"Well, if you had labored in some other business two years, with the intelligence and ballast you have shown around here, you would now have had a desk somewhere and a phone at your elbow."
The teller smiled embarrassedly, and rising, asked:
"When will your resignation go?"
"Right away."
While the manager and teller were discussing the philosophy of banking, the ledger-keeper and junior were worrying a battered-looking savings. Henty was leaning on his elbows and yawning. His eyes followed endless columns of figures, while the ledger-keeper called from the ledger. Filter purposely called an amount wrong, and kept going. When he was five accounts past the "baited" balance Henty shouted: