he cutting down of his salary $150. It had
been reduced $750 when he was first sent to Toronto--after more than
twenty years' faithful service.

Sam Robb, that night at dinner, looked like a man who had been through
a severe illness. He ate little.

"They want me to resign, Evan," he said gutturally, "or they wouldn't
have chopped me again. A nice way of squeezing a fellow out, eh?"

"What are you going to do about it?" asked Evan.

"Get drunk," said Robb.

He did, too.

[1] The writer of this book took statistics in Toronto among eight of
the leading banks in the summer of 1912, and found that out of 450
clerks 13.1 per cent. were over thirty, and 13.0 per cent. were
married. Among those 450 bankclerks at least, a man had to be thirty
before he could afford marriage.

CHAPTER XIV.

_POKER AND PREACHING._

A night or two after "Sam's souse," as the staff called it, four of the
boys came back to the office and found Evan working, as usual, on the
cash-book.

"Still at it?" asked Levison, the paying teller.

"Just struck a balance," replied Nelson.

"Good," said the teller, "we want another man to take a hand in poker.
Come up when you're through."

"I don't know how to play," said Evan.

"You'll soon learn."

"I don't think I want to learn."

Sid grinned and Brower, the ledgerman, called:

"Aw, Nelsy, be a sport; we need some of this outside money."

The boys laughed in chorus and trooped through the office in the
direction of the back stairway. There were rooms for juniors above the
bank, and one of these was the party's destination.

"We'll look for you, kid," whispered Marks in passing the cash-book
desk.

Nelson did not reply. He did not like to refuse the boys; besides, he
was curious to know just how they acted in a game of poker, and he
wanted a little cheap diversion. When his cash-book was ruled up for
the following day he locked the vault, and saying to himself that he
would just have a look-in for sociability's sake, went upstairs.

The four players were seated at a round table on which were five heaps
of matches, one in the centre of the table and one at the elbow of each
man. Evan sneaked in quietly and had learned something about poker
before he was noticed. Several mysteries, including that attaching to
the name "pot," had been solved in his mind before Levison felt the
presence of an intruder and turned around with:

"Hello, Nelsy, come right in. Did you b