time.

A few minutes later the acting-manager came out with a highly
illustrated magazine.

"Say, Bo," he yawned, "things are getting pretty thick. You can't do
much on that $250, you know."

Evan laughed.

"A bank fellow's not in much danger," he said.

"No," replied Dunn, "but what about the girl?"

Nelson revolved the remark in his mind a while. He decided he would
not be so friendly with Lily from that time on.

"It's funny," observed Dunn, again, "how village girls fall for a
bankclerk--when we are made of the very stuff their own brothers are
made of. Most of us came from a farm or a village. The bank has
fitted us out with a shine and a shave, also has made us more useless
year after year, and when we degenerate sufficiently the girls begin to
adore us. I used to correspond with ten girls in different towns,
regularly."

A strange feature of banking life, and which goes to emphasize the
peculiar fascination of it, is that every man knows he is degenerating
and understands why, but he seldom does anything about it. He sails
carelessly along with Ulysses' crew, enjoying the voyage as much as
possible, and worrying not about a landing.

"Still you wouldn't be anything but a banker, would you?" asked Nelson.

"I couldn't if I would," said Dunn, lazily; "I've been at it eight
years. That's all I know."

"Well, supposing you were back on my salary, do you think you would
stay in the bank?"

"I suppose so," answered the other; "I was on $250 once, and I didn't
quit."

Dunn's indifferent contentment had considerable influence over Nelson.
It caused the junior man to severely criticize his own restlessness.
One of the acting-manager's slogans was about the rolling stone and the
moss. The effect of that obsolete aphorism on moss-backs is pitiful.
It impressed Evan, not because of his mossiness altogether, but because
of his youth, and of youth's anxiety to make good. The lad of eighteen
had an example of banking in his manager, Dunn, but his eyes were not
yet opened. He could see the $75 a month very plainly, but he could
not comprehend the eight long years of service that had made Dunn's
salary what it was--and that had made him the laggard he was. Dunn had
not entirely lost ambition, any more than a hundred Dunns in every bank
to-day have lost it; but eight years' specialty service makes a young
man useless for anything else but his specialty, and when he does
muster enough strength to sit u