arks
to the nearest hotel. "Celebrating" is a favorite pastime of bankboys.
Every balance found, every inspection finished, almost anything
accomplished, requires a celebration. It is easy to get in the swim,
and then one makes a fish of himself.

Sam Robb, the ex-manager, was almost as much at sea over the cash-book
as Nelson was; but he had been a clerk longer than the young man, and
he plodded ahead methodically, without that nervous anxiety that gets
young clerks "up in the air." Robb's frequent remarks rendered the
strain less intense to Evan; he worked with greater freedom and
assurance than he would have done alone. Between them they struck a
balance within a reasonable time, and locking up the vault went out to
the street.

The lights of Yonge Street, the city environment, the pleasant April
air, all revived Evan's spirits. For a while he forgot that he was a
bankclerk living in danger of concussion of the brain.

"Let's take in a picture show," he suggested, with interest.

Robb smiled, and agreed. They entered a picture house called "The
Rand," in the middle of a film (who ever entered at any other time?).
It was one of a popular series of crooked clerk pictures then going the
rounds; one of those in which some fellow robs the till and somebody
else gets the blame: a woman comes on the screen, snatches her heart
out of the villain's hands, and throws herself on the hero's neck.

"I wonder if those things ever really happen," said Evan, when they
were on the street again.

"Sure," said Robb. "There isn't anything that can't happen--to a
clerk."

Evan laughed. He was now chumming with his old manager; why not be
more familiar and confiding?

"You don't think much of a clerical job, do you?" he ventured.

Robb regarded him seriously and with a certain amount of satisfaction.

"No, Evan," he replied, "I do not. I've seen too much of this
dependent life. That's what a clerk's life is--dependent. He never
knows the day or the hour when the axe will fall. Besides being in
constant suspense, he is in danger of actually losing his job, any day.
Now, life is too short to spend in dread of losing a position. If I
were a young man again I would build on a solid foundation. As it is
all I know is the bank. It would keep me guessing, after all these
years of banking, to make my present salary anywhere else; and yet I'm
not sure, at that, that I will always remain in the business."

They were wal