Chapter 9

"Suppose we hear the letter read," suggested a fair soul. "Perhaps"--a septuagenarian, with snowy hair and a thin body, clad in the clerical guise of the old school, and who had made a fortune by inventing a hat-block, arose hastily to his feet, and said:

"I cannot stay to listen to a dun!"

A chorus from the majority echoed the exclamation. All but four staggered to their feet, and tottered off in various directions; some to pretend to look out at the window, and some to the wardrobes, where was deposited their outer clothing.

"Clarks," stammered the feeble hatter, feeling vainly for the arm-holes in his great-coat--"clarks presume on their value. Turn 'em out, say I. Give 'em a chance to rotate. You've got my opinion, Mr. President. Refuse what's-his-name, Fields. Tell him he's happy and well off now, without knowing it. Where _can_ be the sleeves to--to this"--his voice expired in his perplexity.

Fields's cause looked blue. One director after another groped to the door, saying, as he went, "I can't encourage it, Mr. President--tell him 'No,' Mr. President--it would only make the rest uneasy if we allowed it--plenty more to fill his place."

The hatter's voice stopped further mention of the subject. He stood at one end of the apartment in a paroxysm of laughter. Tears filled his eyes. He pointed to another director, who, at the other extremity of the room, was also puzzling over a coat. "There's Stuart with my mackintosh! He's trying to _put it on--_and here am I with _his_ coat trying to put _that_ on. I--I said to myself, 'This is pretty large for a slim man like you.'--Great God, Stuart, if I hadn't been quick-sighted we might have stayed here all night!" He immediately fell into another fit of laughter, and so did his friend. They exchanged coats with great hilarity, and those who had gone out of the door lumbered back to learn the cause of it. The story went round from one to the other, "Why, Stuart had Jacobs's coat, and Jacobs had Stuart's coat!" Everybody went into convulsions, and the president drew out his pocket-handkerchief and shrieked into it.

The board broke up with great good feeling, and Jacobs went away very weak, saying that he was going to tell the joke against Stuart on the street--if he lived to get there.

Three gentlemen remained, professedly to hear Fields's letter read. Two staid because the room was comfortable, and the other because he wanted to have a little private conversation with the president afterward.

Therefore the president wiped away the tears that Stuart's humor had forced from his eyes, and opened the crumpled letter, and, turning his back to the light, read it aloud, while the rest listened with looks of great amusement in their wrinkled faces.

"_To the President and Directors of the ---- National Bank._

"GENTLEMEN: I most respectfully renew my application for an increase of my salary to five thousand dollars per annum, it now being four thousand. I am impelled to do this because I am convinced that I am not sufficiently recompensed for the labor I perform; and because other tellers, having the same responsibilities, receive the larger sum per annum; and, lastly, because I am about to be married.

"I remember that your answer to my first application was a definite refusal, and I blamed myself for not having presented the case more clearly to your distinguished notice. Will you permit me to rectify that fault now, and to state briefly why I feel assured that my present claim is not an unreasonable one?

"1. While ten years ago we agreed that three thousand dollars was a fair compensation for the work I was then called upon to perform, and four years later agreed that four thousand dollars was then fair pay for my increased tasks, caused by the increase of your business, is it not just that I should now ask for a still further advance in view of the fact that your business has doubled since the date of our last contract?

"It has been necessary for me to acquaint myself with the signatures and business customs and qualifications of twice the former number of your customers, and my liability to error has also become greater in like ratio. But I have committed no errors, which argues that I have kept up an equal strain of care. This has made demands upon my brain and my bodily strength, which I think should be requited for.

"2. I, like each of you, will one day reach an age when the body and mind will no longer be able to provide for themselves. But between us, should we continue our present relations, there would be this vital difference: You would have made an accumulation of wealth that would be sufficient for your wants, while I would be poor in spite of the fact that I labored with you, and next to yourselves did the most to protect your interests. In view of my approaching incompetence (no matter how far off it is), I am working at a disadvantage. Would it not be right to enable me to protect myself from this disadvantage?

"3. While you pay me a price for my labor and for my skill as an _expert_, do you compensate me for the trials you put upon my probity? You pay me for what I do, but do you reward me for what I _might_, but do _not_ do? Is what I do _not_ do a marketable quantity? I think that it is. To prove it, inquire of those whose servants have behaved ill, whether they would not have paid something to have forestalled their dishonesty.

"There is a bad strain to this paragraph, and I will not dwell upon it. I only ask you to remember that enormous sums of money pass through my hands every day, and that the smallest slip of my memory, or of my care, or of my fidelity, might cause you irreparable loss. Familiarity with money and operations in money always tend to lessen the respect for the regard that others hold it in. To resist the subtle influences of this familiarity involves a certain wear and tear of those principles which _must_ be kept intact for your sake.

"I beg you to accept what is my evident meaning, even if my method of setting it forth has not been particularly happy. I have assured myself that my claim is a valid one, and I await your obliging reply with anxiety.

"I remain, very respectfully, "Your obedient servant,

"----FIELDS, _Paying Teller."_

At the end the president suddenly lowered his head with a smile, and looked over the top of his glasses at his audience, clearly meaning, "There's a letter for you!"

But two of the gentlemen were fast asleep, nodding gently at one another across the table, while their hands clasped the arms of their chairs. The other one was looking up toward the roofs of the buildings opposite, absorbed in speculation.

The president said, aloud:

"I think, as long as Fields has made such a touse about it, that I'd better draft a reply, and not give him a verbal an--"

"Draft!" said the speculator, brought to life by the word. "Draft did you say, sir? What?--On whom?--"

"I said 'draft a reply' to--to this," returned the other, waving the letter.

"Oh, a reply! Draft one. Draft a reply--a reply to the letter about the salary. Oh, certainly, by all means."

"And read it to the directors at the meeting next Friday," suggested the president.

The speculator's eyes turned vacantly upon him, and it was full half a minute before he comprehended. "Yes, yes, of course, read it to the directors next Friday. They'll approve it, you know. That will be regular, and according to rule. But about Steinmeyer, you know. When a man like Steinmeyer does such a thing as--but just come to the window a minute."

He led the president off by the arm, and that was the last of Fields's letter for that day.

* * * * *

II.

Fields was truly on the anxious-seat.

As he had said in his letter, he was engaged to be married, and he wanted to be about the consummation of the contract, for he had already delayed too long. His _affiancée_ was a sweet girl who lived with her widowed mother in the country, where they had a fine house, and a fine demesne attached to it. When the time for the marriage was finally settled upon, the lady instantly set about remodelling her domicile and its surroundings, and making it fit for the new spirits that were soon to inhabit it. She drew upon her accumulation of money that had thriven long in a private bank, and expended it in laying out new lawns, planting new trees, building new stables, erecting tasteful graperies and kiosks. This sum was not very large, and it included not only what had been saved out of the earnings of the farm, but also what had been saved out of the income from the widow's property, which consisted of twelve thousand dollars in insurance stock.

Fields had thus far expended nearly all of his salary of four thousand dollars. He was accustomed to use a quarter of it for his own purposes, and the rest he applied to the comfort of his aged parents, whom he maintained. Thus it will be seen that Fields's desire to add to his own wealth had reason to be.

Just at this time there stepped in the Chicago fire. On the second day Fields began to be frightened about the twelve thousand dollars in insurance stock. Telegrams poured into the city by hundreds, and the tale grew more dismal with each hour.

His fears were realized. The widow's money was swept away, and a sort of paralysis fell upon the country-house and all its surroundings. The carpenters went away from the kiosks, the masons from the face-walls, the smiths from the graperies, the gardeners from the lawns, and everything came to a stand-still. The extra farm-hands were discharged, and much of the work was left unfinished.

What was to be done?

The mother and daughter wept in secret. Their careers had been interrupted. Desolation was out-of-doors, and desolation was in their hearts. The earth lay in ragged heaps; beams and timbers leaned half erect; barns were party-colored with the old paint and the new, and the shrubbery was bare to the frosts. Joys which had smiled had fled into the far distance, and now looked surly enough; all pleasures were unhorsed, and hope was down.

It was under these circumstances that Fields wrote a second time to the honorable board of directors to ask them to pay him better wages.

Friday came. There was a meeting, and Fields knew that his case must now be receiving consideration.

At eleven o'clock the directors emerged from their parlor, and passed by his desk in twos and threes, chatting and telling watery jokes, as most great men do.

"They look as if they had entirely forgotten me," said Fields to himself.

Pretty soon the cashier came and placed a letter upon his counter.

"Ah!" thought the teller, "I was mistaken. I wonder if I can read it here without changing countenance?"

He could but try it. He tore off the envelope. It went thus:

"_Mr.----Fields, Paying Teller._

"DEAR SIR: The president and directors, to whom you addressed a request for an increase of salary, must beg to criticise the arguments advanced in your polite note.

"They do not understand why you should place a new value upon your honesty because in other people there happens to be sometimes such a thing as dishonesty. It is a popular notion that honesty among men is rare, but the idea is a mistaken one. Honesty of the purest kind, as honesty is usually understood, is very common. They cannot help feeling, also, that you somewhat overestimate the value of your work, which to them seems to be only a higher sort of routine, calling for no intellectual endeavor, and requiring but little more than an ordinary bookkeeper's care for its perfect performance. But for the differences that _do_ exist between your tasks and those of the bookkeeper you will remember you are already compensated by a salary a fourth larger.

"Briefly, they consider their bank a piece of money-making mechanism, of which you are an able and respected part; but they cannot understand how you could hope to raise their fear of peculations and villainies when their system of checks and counter-checks is so perfect. They have never lost a dollar by the immorality of any of their employés, and they are sure that matters are so arranged that any such immorality, even of the rankest kind, could occasion them no inconvenience.

"Nor do they comprehend why your idea that increase of business justifies a request for an increase of salary may not be met with the suggestion that your hours of labor are the same as your former hours, and that all you were able to perform in those hours, to the best of your capacity, was purchased at the beginning of your connection with them.

"In regard to the pure question of the sufficiency of your salary, they hint in the kindest manner that all expenditures are contractible as well as extensible.

"They hasten to take this opportunity to express to you their appreciation of your perfect exhibits; and, complimenting you upon the care with which you have fulfilled the duties of your post, they remain your obedient servants."

The teller felt that a more maddening letter could not have been written. Its civility seemed to him to be disagreeable suavity; its failure to particularize the points he made to be a disgraceful evasion; and the liberty it took in generalizing his case to be an enormous insult.

The very first sentence on honesty put him in the light of a blackmailer--one that threatened mischief if his demands were not complied with. The next sentence went to show that he was an egotist, because he thought his labors required wear and tear of brain. The third called him a sound cog-wheel. The latter part of the same said that a villain could do no evil if he wished to, for they (the directors) had protected themselves against villains. Then it went on to say that the writers did not understand how anxiety and caution could be involved in the pursuit of his duties; and then it was thrown out that his marriage was _his_ seeking--not theirs. Finally, they patted him on the head.

The devil!

Fields passed a sleepless night. He felt that he had been belittled to the extremest point, and that there was not a foothold left for his dignity. His soul was incised and chafed, and he lay awake thinking that degradation of himself and his office could have proceeded no further.

Toward morning he hit upon a plan to establish himself in what he believed to be the proper light. "It will require nerve," reflected he, doubtingly, "and not only nerve in itself, but a certain exact quantity of it. Too much nerve would destroy me, and too little nerve would do the same thing. I think, however, that I can manage it. I feel able to do anything. Even a paying teller will turn if--" etc., etc.

* * * * *

III.

On the following Monday there was a special meeting of the directors for the purpose of examining the books and accounts of the bank. The bank-controller was expected to call for an exhibit within the coming week, and it was desirable that the directors should feel assured that their institution was in the proper order. The call of the controller was always impending. It might come any day, and it would require an exhibit of the condition of the bank on any previous day. He was permitted to make five of these calls during the year, and, inasmuch as he was at liberty to choose his own days, his check upon the banks was complete. If he found a bank that had not fulfilled the requirements of law, he was obliged to take away its charter, and to close it: hence the examination-meeting in the present case. The accounts of the tellers were passed upon, the cashier's books were looked over, as were also those of the regular bookkeepers. There seemed to be no errors, and the contents of the safes were proved. There was perfect order in all the departments. The clerks were complimented. "Now," said Fields to himself, "is my opportunity."

On the next day at ten o'clock the directors again assembled--this time for their regular labors--to examine the proposals for discount.

The day happened to be cold and stormy. The twenty clerks were busily and silently at work behind their counters and gratings, and the fourteen directors were shut tight in their mahogany room. There was but little passing to and fro from the street, though now and then a half-frozen messenger came stamping in, and did his errand, with benumbed fingers, through the little windows. The tempest made business light.

At eleven o'clock Fields wrote a note and sent it to the directors' room. The boy who carried it knocked softly, and the president appeared, took the letter, and then closed the door again.

Then there was a moment of almost total silence; the clerks wrote, the leaves rattled, and it seemed as if it were an instant before an expected explosion.

Presently an explosion came. The clerks heard with astonishment a tumult in the directors' room--exclamations, hurried questions, the hasty rolling of chairs on their casters, and then the sound of feet.

The door was hastily drawn open, and those who were near could see that nearly all the directors were clustered around it, straining their eyes to look at the paying teller. Most of them were pale and they called, in one voice, "Come here!" "Come in here at once!" "Fields!" "Mr. Fields!" "Sir, you are wanted!" "Step this way instantly!" Fields put down his pen, opened the tall iron gate which separated him from the counters, and walked rather quickly toward the den of lions. An opening was made for him in the group, and he passed through the door, and it was shut once more.

He walked across the room to the fireplace. He took out his handkerchief, and, seizing a corner between a thumb and forefinger, slowly shook it open, and then turned around.

"This note, sir! What does it mean?" cried the president, advancing upon him, waving the paper in his trembling hand.

"Have you read it?" demanded Fields, in a loud voice.

"Yes," said the president. He was astonished at Fields's manner. He cast a glance upon his fellow-directors.

"Then what is the use of asking me what I mean? It is as plain as I can make it."

"But it says--but it says," faltered the venerable gentleman, turning the paper to the light, "that you have only money enough to last until twelve o'clock. Your statement yesterday showed a balance to your credit of three hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars. That will last at least--"

"But I have not got three hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars. I have only got twenty-seven thousand dollars!"

"But we counted three hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

"Yesterday--yes. But not this morning."

"Great God!" cried Stuart, thrusting himself forward, "what!--" He fixed his feeble eyes upon Fields, but could speak no further. His arms fell down by his sides, and he began to tremble. He did not have sufficient courage to ask the question. Somebody else did.

"What has become of it?"

"That I shall not tell you!" returned Fields, looking defiantly at one director after another.

"But is it gone?" cried the chorus. Many of the faces that confronted Fields had become waxen. The little group was permeated with a tremor.

"Yes, it is gone; I have taken it."

"You have _taken_ it!" "_You_ have taken it!" "_You have taken it!_"

The directors, overwhelmed and confounded, retreated from Fields as if they were in personal danger from him.

"In Heaven's name, Fields!" exclaimed the president, "speak out! Tell us! What!--where!--the money! Come, man!"

"You had better lock the door," said the teller; "some one will be coming in."

One of the most feeble and aged of the board turned around and hastened, as fast as his infirm limbs would permit him, and threw the bolt with feverish haste, and then ran back again to hear.

"Yes," said Fields, with deliberation, "I have taken the money. I have carried it away and hidden it where no one can lay hands upon it but myself."

"Then--then, sir, you have stolen it!"

Fields bowed. "I have stolen it."

"But you have ruined us!"

"Possibly."

"And you have ruined yourself!"

"I am not so sure of that."

"Stop this useless talk!" cried a gentleman, who had heretofore been silent. He bent upon Fields a look of great dignity. "Make it clear, sir, what you have done."

"Certainly. When I left the bank last night I put into my pockets one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in greenbacks of the one-thousand-dollar denomination, one hundred thousand dollars in national-currency notes of the one-hundred-dollar denomination, and one hundred thousand dollars in gold certificates. I left to the credit of my account twenty-seven thousand eight hundred and sixty-two dollars and some odd cents. Eight thousand of these have been already drawn this morning. It is not unlikely that the whole of what is left may be drawn within the next five minutes, and the next draft upon you will find you insolvent. If the balance is against you at the clearing-house, you will undoubtedly be obliged to stop payment before one o'clock."

Fields's interlocutor turned sharply around and sank into his seat. At this three of the young members of the board--Slavin, a wool-dealer, Debritt, a silk importer, and Saville, an insurance actuary--made a violent onslaught upon the teller, but others interposed.

What was to be said? What was to be done? Somebody cried for a policeman, and would have thrown up a window and called into the street. But the act was prevented. It was denounced as childish. After a moment, everybody but Fields had seated himself in his accustomed place, overcome with agitation. Those who could see devoured the teller with their eyes. Two others wept with puerile fear and anger. They began to realize the plight they were in. It began to dawn upon them that an immense disaster was hanging over their heads. How were they to escape from it? Which way were they to turn to find relief? It was no time for brawling and denunciation; they were in the hands of an unscrupulous man, who, at this crucial moment, was as cool and implacable as an iceberg. They watched him carelessly draw and redraw his handkerchief through his fingers; he was unmoved, and entirely at ease.

"Can it be possible!" said a tall and aged director, rising from his chair and bending upon the culprit a look of great impressiveness--"can it be possible that it is our upright and stainless clerk who confesses to such a stupendous villainy as this? Can it be that one who has earned so much true esteem from his fellow-men thus turns upon them and--"