A Canadian Bankclerk Part 43

In that strain the three old clerks talked about the Business they had once--and their relatives still--wors.h.i.+pped.

Quite early Sam Robb arrived at the boarding-house. He met Mrs. Greig on the verandah and looked for signs of news in her eyes. But she merely wished him good-evening.

"Has Nelson been home yet?" he asked, forgetting to speak about the beautiful May weather.

"No, I don't think so," said Mrs. Greig.

"I suppose he went over to the Island," thought Robb; "although that wouldn't seem like Evan. I'll bet this thing has bust him all up."

Absent-mindedly Robb turned the k.n.o.b of his room door and walked in.

He uttered a whispered exclamation.

On the bed, in his clothes, lay the ex-cash-book man, dead to the world, as he wanted to be. An uncorked flask almost empty stood on the dresser, and beside it an unopened flask.

For a moment the humor of the situation struck Robb, and he laughed silently in a chair. But by degrees his face sobered, and he gazed pensively out of the window, a shade of sadness reflected in his countenance. At length he rose and taking the flasks from the dresser emptied their contents in a basin. Then he took off the sleeper's shoes and undressed him by degrees. Evan groaned during the exercise but did not waken. He slept through, indeed, until the following morning.

Very early he crawled out of bed and doused himself in the bath-tub.

He was sick at his stomach and his head felt like a hogshead; unaccustomed to liquor as he was, the cognac had taken violent effect.

He staggered, although perfectly "sober," and wondered if he would ever get his shoes laced. His room-mate in the bed opposite him heard the rummaging.

"Good night, Evan," he said sleepily, as though just turning in.

For a moment Evan was confused and actually thought it must be evening, but a smothered chuckle from beneath the sheets of the other bed notified him that it was really the morning after.

"What time is it?" he asked; "my watch has stopped."

Robb made an effort to keep sober, more than Evan had done the previous day, and told the time. He dressed with his back to the young man, indulging the while in inward bursts of merriment. The soberness of Evan's countenance made it all the more difficult for his friend to contain himself.

Evan did not suspect that Robb was enjoying a one-sided entertainment, until a mirror betrayed the fact; then he, himself, laughed. The louder he laughed, the louder he wanted to laugh. The old clerk joined him frankly, and when they had done, cried--

"Isn't this a ridiculous world?"

Evan agreed that it was. Gradually he lost his sense of humor, however, for after-intoxication is a series of reactions, and a headache reminded him that alcohol was said to be hard on the nerves.

"Where are you going?" Sam asked him, as Evan took his straw hat from a hook.

"Out in the air," he said; "I feel rotten."

"Get some good strong coffee, Evan; that will fix you up sooner than anything. Fresh air is too natural a remedy to cure an unnatural thing like a drunk, especially a fellow's first drunk."

Again the elder man laughed, and this time he begged his young friend's pardon.

"You mustn't be sore on me for having such a good time at your expense," he said; "but really I never saw anything quite so funny in my life. You the temperate and sober-minded cash-book man.... By the way, you must stick around here until you land a job."

Nelson began to say that he was under too great obligation already, and felt that it would hardly be square; but Robb interrupted him with a couple of powerful expletives, and they agreed to another week's companions.h.i.+p.

After coffee Evan thought he would like to walk down University Avenue with Robb, and did so for a few blocks; but the lightness of his head counselled a shady and steady bench. He fell by the wayside.

"Just rest up to-day, old man," advised Sam, "and don't worry. It's very dangerous to stew when you're already pickled."

Evan smiled half-heartedly and promised to spend the day at Island Park.

"I'm glad you're not coming all the way," said Robb, without much humor in his face.

"Why?"

"I wouldn't want your destination to be the bank, for fear it might sometime get to be your destiny--like mine."

"Are you glad they fired me?"

"Not exactly, Evan; but I'm glad you're out."

"What do you think of the way they did it?"

Robb glowered at a pa.s.sing limousine.

"Don't ask me," he said fiercely. "From now on my daily prayer is for a chance to get back at them. I hope it will come. All my life in the business, Evan, I've seen instances, like this, of the bank's mercilessness. I'm sick and tired of it. It's you who are lucky, my lad, and I who am unlucky."

"Still," said Evan, "it's an awful thing to feel that you're suspected of being a thief."

Robb's eyes flamed.

"They don't think it," he said sharply; "the rascals know you are innocent! It is not their opinion that hurts, Evan, but their influence--I hope--" He did not finish it. "I wonder," he continued, "if these fellows know what it is to hear their hearts beat? They claim to be big men; they make a great display of affection among their own folk, but when it comes to showing humane consideration for someone, they can't do it. They only invest friends.h.i.+p or justice where it will, like the money they invest, bring big returns. The clerk is only one of the many who don't count with them. What does he matter to them?--they wear him out and pay him out for gain."

The ex-manager spoke with emphasis and his lips puckered as after a bitter expectoration.

"I hope," said Evan, "that some day you'll get a chance to quit."

"That sounds good, coming from you," replied Robb. "I only live on that hope myself. Sometimes it seems forlorn enough, though.... By Jove! it's after nine; I must beat it. I'll see you at dinner to-night, eh?"

"All right."

Evan watched the old clerk down the avenue, and he remembered the first time he had seen that gait. It was in Mt. Alban on a May day, too.

The juvenile bankman had pictured himself walking down the main street of some town inside a manager's clothes and shoes--just like Mr. Robb.

But thinking made Evan's head thump. He decided it would be a good idea to catch a McCaul car and connect with the ferry for Island Park.

He boarded the car, together with one or two women and a little girl carrying a lunch indigestible anywhere but on Centre Island.

The beauty and quietude of Toronto's rest resort and the sparkling freshness of the surrounding water, revived Evan a little; but a stronger liquid than H2O was around his brain somewhere, and the Island became uncomfortable. In spite of the pleasant environment he found himself unable to take his mind off the bank and what it had done to him. Early in the afternoon, he suddenly imagined that he could endure no longer to sit and worry, so he took the ferry back to the city and went to the office of the _Star_.

After inserting an advertis.e.m.e.nt for a position as bookkeeper--saying nothing about recommendations--he waited around the Star office with a crowd of other work-seekers until the afternoon edition emanated from the large mouth of a small newsboy. He felt more like crawling away in some alley and dying than hunting a job, but he was anxious to obliterate the bank from his mind; and besides, he wanted to have another situation before writing home that he had quit the bank.

Evan did not have the faintest intention of telling his people he had been fired. They would not understand it, he knew. How could they understand such medieval work? This was not a day of inquisitions or guillotines! But when he was established in a better position than the one he had left, it would be easy to explain that he had resigned. He knew that his father was not much in favor of banking anyway.

The first ad that attracted the ex-clerk belonged to an abattoir company near the lake-front. He wasted no time in getting to their office.

"Where have you been working?" asked the manager.

"In the S---- Bank," replied Evan.