smiled. Apparently the place had a reputation.

"What's your name?" asked the bank's man.

"Nelson."

"Hey," called the janitor, "come here, Bill. Here's a new pal."

The individual named "Bill" slouched up the office.

"Well, for heaven's sake!" cried Evan. "I thought you were dead."

Bill Watson shook his old desk-mate's hand heartily, and wove
undictionaried words into his speech.

"Where have you been, Evan?"

"Why, don't you know? I've been teller and accountant at Banfield."

Watson smiled.

"One of those three-entry-a-day places?"

"No, sir; I worked nights more than half the time."

Bill grunted.

"This business is getting to be a son-of-a-gun, Evan. Even in country
towns the boys are being nailed down to it. The bank keeps cutting
down its staff, or otherwise losing them, and crowding more and more
work on the boys who stick."

Evan was silent for a while. Bill's familiar voice carried him back to
Mt. Alban, and he could see the office as it looked the day he began
banking. He could, moreover, see the faces of Julia Watersea and Hazel
Morton.

"Have you heard from the old town lately, Bill?"

"No, not for a year. I left there soon after you did. They sent me to
Montreal, then here. I got a few letters from Hazel when she was
there."

"Is she gone from the Mount?"

"Yes, d---- the bank and poverty!"

Watson's eyes fired and he spoke passionately. For the moment Evan's
presence had brought back Mt. Alban days too vividly. The color
gradually died from Bill's face.

"I'm a jackdaw, Nelsy," he said, trying to smile. "Do you remember how
I used to carry on up there? I had a rotten time in Mt. Alban, but it
was the best time I ever had. I wish to the good Lord I could do
something besides banking. But my salary is now $750, and I'm
twenty-three; I couldn't draw the same money at anything else, and
stand any chance of promotion. No mercantile house, for instance,
wants a man of twenty-three. What's a fellow to do?"

Unable to answer the question, Evan gazed out of the window at throngs
of men and girls on their way to business.

"Just look at that mob," said Bill; "lots of them are working on about
one-half what they're worth, and they've been years getting in where
they are. Take the young men you see, they've been specializing for
years, some of them, and draw about fifteen dollars a week now--just
what I do. Their chances are away ahead of mine, as a rule, because