"Let's take in a picture show," he suggested, with interest.
Robb smiled, and agreed. They entered a picture house called "The Rand," in the middle of a film (who ever entered at any other time?). It was one of a popular series of crooked clerk pictures then going the rounds; one of those in which some fellow robs the till and somebody else gets the blame: a woman comes on the screen, snatches her heart out of the villain's hands, and throws herself on the hero's neck.
"I wonder if those things ever really happen," said Evan, when they were on the street again.
"Sure," said Robb. "There isn't anything that can't happen—to a clerk."
Evan laughed. He was now chumming with his old manager; why not be more familiar and confiding?
"You don't think much of a clerical job, do you?" he ventured.
Robb regarded him seriously and with a certain amount of satisfaction.
"No, Evan," he replied, "I do not. I've seen too much of this dependent life. That's what a clerk's life is—dependent. He never knows the day or the hour when the axe will fall. Besides being in constant suspense, he is in danger of actually losing his job, any day. Now, life is too short to spend in dread of losing a position. If I were a young man again I would build on a solid foundation. As it is all I know is the bank. It would keep me guessing, after all these years of banking, to make my present salary anywhere else; and yet I'm not sure, at that, that I will always remain in the business."
They were walking up University Avenue.
"I'm awfully glad to get staying with you," said Evan, suddenly. "I believe I would have had a renewal of homesickness down in that hotel."