nd, Marks, the C man, shouted:

"Hey, the banks are balanced!"

Evidently the accountant had kept the matter quiet. The boys who
happened to see Nelson pass out of the front door probably thought he
was taken with one of his violent headaches, and had gone for a
druggist's dose. He had done that several times during his cash-book
experience. Once he had been taken with an acute indigestion pain and
a doctor was called in. The doctor advised him to take a taxi home. A
few days later the bankclerk was presented with a bill for $3.50--half
a week's salary. The indigestion, needless to say, had been caused by
eating a cold lunch under the nervous excitement of waiting work.
Another time he had been searching in the vault for a package of old
vouchers and a book had fallen on him, breaking both lenses of his
glasses: cost $4.50--more than half a week's pay. Those things were
all "in a day's work," Willis used to say. So were board and bed. The
fact of the matter is, Nelson was given nothing and had nothing outside
of a day's work; a day's work was what he lived for. And there are
hundreds of Nelsons in the banks now.

As Evan passed Charon, the accountant did not raise his head; nor did
Castle lift his. Evan did not care; they were nothing to him now.
Neither was the bank anything to him. He cursed it; in oaths he had
never expected to use he cursed it.

With the very taste of profanity on his lips, Nelson stood absently
gazing into a liquor store. The shiny bottles fascinated him. He
wondered if the stuff in them was all that it seemed to men to be;
would it drown care and disappointment? Above all, would it bring
unconsciousness?

He had seen Robb lying drunk, and the sight had interested him. Robb's
sprees were not bestial like Penton's; they were dead, harmless. That
was the sort of thing Evan, in his melancholy state of mind, would
like. He had tasted liquor and it rather tickled his palate; why not
carry a bottle up to the boarding-house and go in soak for the
afternoon? He knew it was wrong, but he wanted to do something
desperate; also, he wanted to make sure of falling asleep and
forgetting everything. He thought of his mother and sister, and of
Frankie, as he looked into the liquor store. That was just the
trouble, he thought too much about them. What would they think of his
dismissal? It would break the mother's heart and the girls could never
understand. Evan was in a torture of worr