“Money seems to be very scarce in Banbridge this morning,” remarked Charlotte, in a sweet, slightly petulant voice. She was both angry and ashamed that she had been forced to apply to Anderson to cash the check. “I have been everywhere, and nobody had as much as twenty-five dollars,” she added.
Anderson heard a very faint chuckle, immediately covered by a cough, from Sam Riggs. He began counting out the notes, being conscious that the man and the boy were regarding each other with meaning, that the boy's elbow dug the man's ribs. He handed the money to Charlotte with a courteous bow, and she gave him in return the check, which was payable to her mother, and which had been indorsed by her.
“Thank you very much indeed,” she said, but still in a piqued rather than very grateful voice. She really had no suspicion that any particular gratitude was called for towards any one who cashed one of her father's checks.
“You are quite welcome,” Anderson replied.
“It is a great inconvenience not having a bank in Banbridge,” she remarked, accusingly, as she went out of the door with a slight nod of her pretty head. Then suddenly she turned and looked back. “I am very much obliged,” she said, in an entirely different voice. Her natural gentleness and courtesy had all at once reasserted themselves. “I trust I have not inconvenienced you,” she added, very sweetly. “I would have waited until papa came home to-night and got him to cash the check. He was a little short this morning, and had to use some money before he could go to the bank, but my sister and I are very anxious to take the eleven-thirty train to New York, and we had only a dollar and six cents between us.” She laughed as she said the last, and Anderson echoed her.
“That is not a very large amount, certainly, to equip two ladies to visit the shopping district,” he said.
“I am very glad to accommodate you, and it is not the slightest inconvenience, I assure you.”
“Well, I am very much obliged, very much,” she repeated, with a pretty smile and nod, and she was gone with a little fluttering hop like a bird down the steps.
“He's got stuck,” the boy motioned with his lips to the old clerk as Anderson re-entered the office, and the man nodded in assent. Neither of them ventured to express the opinion to Anderson. Both stood in a certain awe of him. The former lawyer still held familiarity somewhat at bay.
However, there followed a whispered consultation between the two clerks, and both chuckled, and finally Sam Riggs advanced with bravado to the office door.