The Main Chance

by Meredith Nicholson

"Wheaton, your family live here, don't they?"

"No," said Wheaton, smiling his difficult smile, "I haven't any family. My parents are dead. I came here from Ohio, and board over on the north side."

"Another Ohio man," said Porter, "you can't keep 'em down." They all laughed at Porter's joke and Wheaton bowed himself out under cover of it.

Later, when need arose for creating the position of assistant cashier, it was natural that the new desk should be assigned to Wheaton. He was faithful and competent; neither Porter nor Thompson had a son to install in the bank; and, as they said to each other and to their fellow directors, Wheaton had two distinguishing qualifications,—he did his work and he kept his mouth shut.

In the course of time Thompson's health broke down and the doctors ordered him away to New Mexico, and again there seemed nothing to do but to promote Wheaton. Thompson wished to sell his stock and resign, but Porter would not have it so; but when, after two years, it was clear that the cashier would never again be fit for continuous service in the bank, Wheaton was duly elected cashier and Thompson was made vice-president.

Wheaton had now been in Clarkson fifteen years, and he was well aware that other young men, with influential connections, had not done nearly so well as he. He treasured no illusions as to his abilities; he did not think he had a genius for business; but he had demonstrated to his own satisfaction that such qualities as he possessed,—industry, sobriety and obedience,—brought results, and with these results he was well satisfied. He hoped some day to be rich, but he was content to make haste slowly. He never speculated. He read in the newspapers every day of men holding responsible positions who embezzled and absconded, but there was never any question in his mind as between honesty and knavery. It irritated him when these occurrences were commented on facetiously before him; he did not relish jokes which carried an implication that he too might belong to the dubious cashier class; and inquiries as to whether he would spend his vacation in Canada or, if it were winter, in Guatemala, were not received in good part, for he had much personal dignity and little humor. He was counted among the older men of the town rather than among men of his own age, and he found himself much more at ease among his seniors. The young men appreciated his good qualities and respected him; but he felt that he was not one of them; socially, he was voted very slow, and there was an impression abroad that he was stingy. Certainly he did not spend his money frivolously, and he never had done so. Many fathers held him up as an example to their sons, and this tended further to the creation of a feeling among his contemporaries that he was lacking in good fellowship.

Raridan knew the personal history of most of his fellow townsmen, and he was fond of characterizing those whom he particularly liked or disliked, for the benefit of his friends. He took it upon himself to sketch Wheaton for John Saxton's benefit in this fashion.

"Jim Wheaton's one of those men who never make mistakes," said Raridan, with the scorn of a man whose own mistakes do not worry him. "He went into that bank as a boy, and was first a model messenger, and then a model clerk; and when they had to have a cashier there was the model assistant, who had been a model everything else, so they put him in. There wasn't anybody else for the job; and I guess he's a good man for it, too. A bank cashier doesn't dare to make mistakes; and as Wheaton is not of that warm, emotional nature that would lead him to lend money without getting something substantial to hold before the borrower got away, he's the model cashier. You've heard of those bank cashiers who can refuse a loan to a man and send him out of the bank singing happy chants. Well, Jim isn't that kind. When he turns down a man, the man doesn't go on his way rejoicing. I don't know how much money Wheaton's got. He's made something, of course, and Porter would probably sell him stock up to a certain point. He'll die rich, and nobody, I fancy, will ever be any gladder because he's favored this little old earth with his presence."

As a bank clerk the teller's cage had shut Wheaton off from the world. Young women of social distinction who came sometimes to get checks cashed, knew him as a kind of automaton, that looked at both sides of their checks and at themselves, and then passed out coin and paper to them; they saw him nowhere else, and did not bother themselves about him. After his promotion to be assistant cashier, he saw the world closer at hand. He had a desk and could sit down and talk to the men whom he had studied from the cage for so long. The young women, too, approached him no longer with checks to be cashed, but with little books in which they urged him officially and personally to subscribe to charities. Porter, who was naturally a man of generous impulses, knew his own weakness and made the cashier the bank's almoner. He was very sure that Wheaton would be as careful of the bank's money as of his own; he had taken judicial knowledge of the fact that Wheaton's balance on the bank's books had shown a marked and steady growth through all the years of his connection with it.

Wheaton's promotion to the cashiership had come in the spring; and shortly afterward he had changed his way of living in a few particulars. He had lodged for years in a boarding house frequented by clerks; a place where his fellow boarders were, among others, a music teacher, a milliner and the chief operator of the telephone exchange. He had not felt above them; their dancing class and occasional theater party had seemed fine to him. Porter now suggested that Wheaton should be a member of the Clarkson Club, and Wheaton assented, on the president's representation that "it would be a good thing for the bank." Vacant apartments were offered at this time in The Bachelors', as it was called, and he availed himself of the opportunity to change his place of residence. He had considered the matter of taking a room at the club, but this, after reflection, he rejected as unwise. The club was a new institution in the town, and he was aware that there were conservative people in Clarkson who looked on it as a den of iniquity,—with what justification he did not know from personal experience, but he had heard it referred to in this way at the boarding house table. He knew Raridan and the others at The Bachelors', but his acquaintance with them was of a perfunctory business character. When he moved to The Bachelors', Raridan, who was always punctilious in social matters, formally called on him in his room, as did also Captain Wheelock, the army officer then stationed in Clarkson on recruiting service. The others in the house welcomed him less formally as they chanced to meet him in the hall or on the stairway; they were busy men who worked long hours and did not bother themselves about the amenities and graces of life.