toria bankclerk got together a crowd, as he had promised; there
were old and young fellows, tall and short fellows, but all good
fellows. They forced Nelson into a speech, which they cheered and
applauded. They insisted on ordering drinks, but Evan told them he
would be disappointed if they started off a union that way. They were
all anxious to have their names enrolled as first members of "_The
Associated Bankclerks of Canada_." One of the boys went down to a
bookstore and returned with a record book in which applications for
membership were to be enrolled.

Nelson took the boys into his confidence, and their sympathy was
aroused. He suggested that each man present do his best by letter or
otherwise to enlist other clerks in the movement. Not only names but
signatures were to be collected and pasted in the record book. Nothing
was to be done that would put an instrument of destruction in the hands
of head office. All letters were to be addressed to Evan Nelson,
Hometon, Ontario. He wrote the post-office there to hold his mail for
further orders.

The "organizers"--they grinned as they applied the term to each
other--spent two nights among the Victoria clerks, who agreed to take
charge of Vancouver Island, then departed for Vancouver. There it took
them three days and nights to work things up. They got a heap of
circulars printed, with the following titles: "What the Bank Did to
Me;" "Why Are You a Bankclerk?"; "Bank Union"; "Why Does Head Office
Resent Co-operation of Clerks?"; and others, all by "X. Bankclerk."
Printed matter was left in the hands of every man who wrote his name in
the record book. Head office might get hold of a circular, but what
could they do about it?

After finishing Vancouver, Nelson and Henty turned their attention to
towns and villages. They carried with them, after less than a
fortnight's work, about fifty letters of introduction to clerks all
over the Dominion; that bundle was going to increase twenty-fold before
they reached Halifax.

Small towns were easy; the boys sometimes did two and three a day. A.
P. proved to be a whirlwind talker when he got warmed up to it. He
parted from Evan at Sicamous Junction, and went down the Okanagan
Valley. Evan went on to Revelstoke and worked the Arrow Lakes. In two
weeks they met at Penticton, as glad to see each other as if they had
been separated for years. They had many funny incidents to relate and
plenty of success to discuss