Cashier Frank Vaniman was sweeping out.
When President Britt of the new Egypt Trust company went down to a business college in the city in search of a cashier, he quizzed candidates in quest of what he termed "foolish notions." Young Mr.
Vaniman, who had supported himself ever since he was fourteen years old, and had done about everything in the ten years since then in the way of work, grabbing weeks or months for his schooling when he had a bit of money ahead, pa.s.sed the test very well, according to Mr. Britt"s notion.
Young Mr. Vaniman had secured a business education piecemeal, and was a bit late in getting it, but Mr. Britt promptly perceived that the young man had not been hung up by stupidity or sloth. So he hired Vaniman, finding him a strapping chap without foolish notions.
Vaniman was cashier, receiving teller, paying teller, swept out, tended the furnace, and kept the books of the bank until Britt hired Vona Harnden for that job. Vona had been teaching school to help out her folks, in the prevailing Egyptian famine in finance.
But folks stopped paying taxes, and the town orders by the school committee on the treasurer were not honored; therefore, Vona gratefully took a place in the bank when Mr. Britt called her into his office one day and offered the job to her. He said that the work was getting to be too much for Frank. That consideration for hired help impressed Miss Harnden and she smiled very sweetly indeed, and Mr. Britt beamed back at her in a fashion that entirely disarranged for the rest of the day the set look that he creased into his features before his mirror every morning. Several clients took advantage of his blandness and renewed notes without paying the premium that Britt exacted when he loaned his own money as a private venture.
President Britt entered the door, but he did not go into the bank at once. He marched along the corridor and unlocked his office and toasted himself over the furnace register while he finished his cigar; Vaniman was a good fireman and was always down early. Mr. Britt kept his ear c.o.c.ked; he knew well the tap of certain brisk boot heels that sounded in the corridor every morning and he timed his movements accordingly.
By being on the alert for sounds, he heard what did not comport with the comfort of his office. Prophet Elias was engaged in his regular morning tour of duty, picketing T. Britt"s domains, giving an hour to deliverance of taunting texts before going abroad through the town on his mission to the people with texts of comfort; the Prophet carried plenty of penetrating, textual ammunition, but he carried poultices for the spirit as well.
Mr. Britt heard: ""Will he esteem thy riches? No, not gold, nor all the forces of strength.""
The usurer commented under his breath with remarks that were not scriptured. He threw away his cigar and went to a case where he kept some law books which contained the statutes that were concerned with money and debts and dependence; he had been hunting through the legislative acts regarding vagrants and paupers and had been hoping to light on some legal twist that would serve him. The Prophet kept on proclaiming. But all at once he shifted from taunts about riches. His voice was mellow with sincere feeling.
Said the Prophet: ""Behold, thou art fair, my love; thou hast doves"
eyes within thy locks. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep which came up from the washing. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely. Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.""
Mr. Britt did not wait in his office for the completion of the panegyric. He knew well enough what arriving personage it heralded. He hurried out into the corridor and faced the radiant girl who came in from the sunshine. Even one who might question the Prophet"s tact would not have blamed his enthusiasm.
"Vona, you swear out a warrant and I"ll have him arrested," stammered the employer.
She checked a chirrup of laughter and her smile faded when she opened her eyes on Britt"s sourness.
"There"s a law about hectoring and insulting a female person on the street--some kind of a law--and we"ll invoke it in this case," Britt insisted.
"Why, Mr. Britt, he"s only a harmless old man with extremely poor judgment about most things, including a girl"s looks," she protested.
"Don"t you call that gabble an insult to you, walking along and minding your own business?" His heat was alarming; he shook his fist to indicate the Prophet.
She was unable to restrain her demure smile. "The specifications, sir, are overflattering; but I"m sure I don"t feel insulted."
In the past Britt had purred paternally in her presence and had stared at her in a way that often disconcerted her. Now his expression alarmed her. His face grew red. At first she thought he was embarra.s.sed by the reflection that he had been terming the Prophet"s compliments an insult--intimating that she had no claim to such compliments. But Mr.
Britt did not bother to deal with that phase of the matter. The flame was shifted from his face to his eyes; his cheeks grew pale. He tried to put his arm about her. She set her gloved hands against the arm and pushed it away, fright popping her eyelids wide apart.
"I want to protect you," Britt stuttered. "I don"t want any harm or trouble to come to you."
He stepped back and gazed at her imploringly. His abashed obedience, his promptness in desisting, restored her self-possession immediately. She had the air of one who had misunderstood friendly interest. "Oh, Mr.
Britt, I know you have a kind heart underneath your--I mean that folks don"t realize how good you are unless they are near to you, as Frank and I are. We often speak of it." She hurried on. She opened the door admitting to the bank from the corridor and cheerily called her "Good morning!" to the cashier as she crossed the threshold.
Mr. Britt stood in his tracks in the corridor after she closed the door.
He stared at the floor with eyes that saw nothing. He slowly raised his hand and set his right index finger upon the toupee and scratched meditatively through the mesh--scratched carefully, having accustomed himself to handling his boughten hair with cautious touch. He had not liked her intonation when she said "Frank and I." He muttered something about his feelings. He had never thought of Frank as belonging in Vona"s calculations. He had never considered even the linking of their names, much less their interests.
But Mr. Britt, having made money his idol, could not understand worship directed to any other shrine. His face cleared while he pondered. A girl who frankly declared at all times that she would do "most anything to help her family out of their troubles was not of a mind to hitch up with another pauper--a combination of ch.o.r.eman and cashier--even though she had linked their names casually in speech. And Mr. Britt mouthed mumblingly some of the sentiments he had put into words that morning when he arose. He smoothed down the top piece and looked more at ease.
He smiled when he reflected on what he would have to say to her after Emissary Orne had returned with something in the line of fruits from the Promised Land. His self-a.s.surance revived; nevertheless, he tiptoed along the corridor and listened at the door of the bank.
The rea.s.suring swish of a broom and their casual chatter--he heard only those commonplace sounds!
She was asking Vaniman if he had mislaid her dustcloth.
Vaniman replied in a tone which indicated that the two were at some distance from each other. There was no subdued conference--no murmuring of mushiness such as a meeting in the morning might be expected to elicit in case there was any sort of an understanding between them. Mr.
Britt tiptoed away from the door and braced back his shoulders and gave himself a shake of satisfied confidence, and went serenely into his office, plucking a cigar from his vest pocket. By permitting himself to smoke again he was breaking the habit of confining himself to one cigar after breakfast. But many men in moments of exaltation seek tobacco or alcohol.
Mr. Britt felt that he had broken the ice, at any rate. Mr. Britt decided that the girl was heart-free and entertained sensible ideas about the main chance--and she had had a good word to say about Britt"s kind heart. Mr. Britt was sure that Frank Vaniman knew his place and was keeping it. Therefore, Mr. Britt lighted a fresh cigar and blew visible smoke rings and inflated invisible mental bubbles and did not pay any more attention to what Prophet Elias was saying outside. And as if the Prophet had received a psychological hint that his text shafts were no longer penetrating the money king"s tough hide, the diminuendo of his orotund marked the progress of his departure.
Usually Mr. Britt went across into the bank and hung around after the girl arrived. On this morning he stayed in his office. According to his notion, his advances to her in the corridor, though he had not intended to be so precipitate in the matter, had given her something to think about--and he decided to keep away and let her think. If she saw him following the usual routine, her thoughts might drop back into routine channels.
He thrilled at the memory of her touch on his arm, even though the touch had been a thrusting of her hands in self-defense and her eyes had been big with fright.
He sat down at his desk and tore the leaf off his pad calendar, starting his business day as usual. He looked at the disclosed date and his eyes became humid. It was February 14th, the day of St. Valentine. An idea came to Mr. Britt. He had been wondering how to approach the question with Vona without blurting the thing and making a mess of it. He determined to do something that he had not attempted since he had beaued Hittie; he set himself to compose a few verses for a valentine--verses that would pave the way for a formal declaration of his love and his hopes.
The determination indicated that Mr. Britt was having a severe run of a second attack of the same malady, and he acknowledged that much to himself as he sat there and chewed the soggy end of an extinguished cigar and gazed aloft raptly, seeking rhymes.
He made slow progress; his pen trailed as sluggishly as a tracking snail--a word at a time. He lost all notion of how the hours were slipping past.
A man walked in. He was Stickney, a cattle buyer, and a minor stockholder in the bank. Mr. Britt, his eyes filmy with prolonged abstraction, hooked his chin over his shoulder and scowled on the intruder; a man bringing business into that office that day was an intruder, according to Mr. Britt"s opinion.
Stickney walked close to the desk and displayed a flash of curiosity when Britt laid his forearm over his writing.
"Spring pome, or only a novel?" queried Stickney, genially, figuring that such a question was the height of humor when put to a man of Tasper Britt"s flinty, practical nature.
Mr. Britt, like a person touched smartly by a brad, twitched himself in his chair and asked in chilly tone what he could do for Stickney. The caller promptly became considerable of an icicle himself. He laid down a little sheaf of papers beside the shielding forearm.
"If you"ll O. K. them notes for discount, I"ll be much obliged, and won"t take up valuable time."
"We"re tightening up on discounts--calling in many loans, too," stated President Britt, with financial frigidity.
"I know all about your calling loans, Mr. Britt. Much obliged. It makes a crackerjack market for me in the cattle business. They"ve got to raise money, and I"m setting my own prices." Stickney thawed and beamed on Britt with a show of fraternal spirit, as if the banker were a co-conspirator in the job of shaking down the public. "However, my notes there are all good butchers" paper--sound as a pennyroyal hymn! I"ve got to have the cash so as to steal more cattle while the market is as it is."
Britt pushed away the notes and seized the opportunity to turn his own papers upside down on the desk. "We can"t accommodate you at present, Stickney."
The customer stepped back and propped his palms on his hips. "I reckon I"ve got to call for an explanation."
"We"re not in the habit of explaining the details of our business to individuals."
Stickney slipped the leash on his indignation. ""We," say you? All right! "We" it is. I"m in on that "we." I"m a stockholder in the bank.
What sort of investments are "we" making that have caused money to be so tight here that a regular customer is turned down--and after enough loans have been called to make the vault bulge?"
"The report will show," returned Britt, coldly. "I am not called on to issue that report in installments every time a stockholder turns in here."
The especial stockholder stepped forward and tapped his finger on the desk. "I don"t say that you are. But now that this subject is opened up--"
"The subject is closed, Stickney."
"Now that the subject is opened up," insisted the other man, "I"ll make mention of what you probably know--that I have regular business "most every day down in Levant at the railroad terminus. And I"m knowing to it that regular shipments of specie have been coming to the bank. If that specie is in our vaults it ain"t sweating off more gold and silver, is it, or drawing interest? I know you"re a shrewd operator, Britt. I ain"t doubting but what your plans may be good."
"They are!" President Britt"s retort was crisp.