he turns tail, and you hit
a balance about 1 a.m. You not only have to balance your friend the
cash book, you've got four tellers to balance, and they have everything
beat for bulls. Our old friend 'the porter' wasn't in it for a minute
with these mutts here."

"Are you ready?" shouted a resonant voice.

"Yes," said Bill. "Mr. Key, meet Mr. Nelson, from Banfield. Now,
Nelsy, beat it to the basement till we get through calling. You'll
need a cigarette to fix you up for the day's work."

"Yes," said Key, "take all the constitutionals you can get;" then in a
loud voice: "Credit clearing house--come on, come on!"

Away they went, while Evan stood by in hope of learning something. He
lost the trend of things looking at Key's white hair and faded face.
He wondered how many years the little man had been a bankclerk.
Besides Key there was another clerk with grey hair.

"Who's that?" Nelson asked the oldest and most talkative junior.

"Mr. Willis. He was a manager once, but head office didn't like his
policy, so they cut his salary down from $2,400 to $1,400 and sent him
here to this sweat-shop to finish it out."

"To finish what out?"

"Why, his career. Some career, eh?"

Evan suddenly remembered that he was a country accountant, and it was
poor policy to abet a junior in heterodoxy.

"He must have done something wrong, didn't he?"

The junior, a sharp youngster, looked extremely indignant now.

"No chance," he said; "Willis is one of the decentest heads around this
dump. He made no bulls: it was a pure question of policy. Ask
anybody. The collection man over there" (pointing to a red-haired
fellow of about thirty) "used to work with him. I brought Johns in the
bills before three o'clock last fourth of the month and he opened his
heart to me. Johns is my pal around here, although he never sees me
outside the office."

"You seem to like him pretty well," said Evan, smiling.

"I do. I let the other kids have Castle's work; when that guy travels
east I always go west."

Seeing how nihilistic and iconoclastic the young chap was, Evan deemed
it unwise to longer remain in his society; he wandered across to the
"C" desk. There, two men were ruling up large books in preparation for
the morning's clearing. They were standing with their faces to the
light and working with indelible pencils. That job always affected
their eyes, Evan was told, after a few weeks or months.

The clearing came in. The pay