"The truth is, we are paying for a period of reckless trading, encouraged in my humble opinion, Mr. Ovington"--he could not refrain from the stab--"by those who should have restrained it."
Ovington let that pass. He had too much at stake to retort.
"Possibly," he said. "Possibly. But we have now to deal with the present--as it exists. It is on public rather than on private grounds that I appeal to you, Mr. Dean. A disaster threatens the community. I appeal to you to help me to avert it. As I have said, securities shall be placed in your hands, more than sufficient to cover the risk.
Approved securities to your satisfaction."
But the other shook his head. He was enjoying his triumph--a triumph beyond his hopes. "What you suggest," he said, a faint note of sarcasm in his tone, "comes to this, Mr. Ovington--that we pool resources?
That is how I understand you?"
"Practically."
"Well, I am afraid that in justice to our customers I must reply that we cannot do that. We must think of them first, and of ourselves next."
Ovington took up his hat. The other's tone was coldly decisive. Still he made a last effort. "Here is the list," he said. "Perhaps if you and your brother went over it at your leisure?"
But Dean waved the list away. "It would be useless," he said. "Quite useless. We could not entertain the idea." He was already anticipating the enjoyment with which he would tell his brother the news.
With a heavy heart, Ovington replaced the list in his breast pocket.
"Very good," he said. His face was grave. "I did not expect--to be frank--any other answer, Mr. Dean. But I thought it was my duty to see you. I regret your decision. Good-morning."
"Good-morning," the other banker replied, and he rang for his man-servant.
"They're gone," he reflected complacently, as the door closed behind his visitor. "Smashed, begad!" and with the thought he rid himself of a sense of inferiority which had more than once troubled him in his rival's presence. He sat down to eat his breakfast with a good appetite. The day would be a trying one, but Dean's, at any rate, was safe. Dean's, thank God, had never put its hand out farther than it could draw it back. How pleased his brother would be!
That was the worst, immeasurably the worst, of Ovington's experiences, but it was not the only painful interview that was in store for him before the bank opened that morning. Twice, men, applying, stealthy and importunate, at the back door, forced their way in to him. They were not of those who had claims on the bank and feared to be losers by it. They were in debt to it, but desperate and pushed for money they saw in the bank's necessity their opportunity. They--one of the two was Purslow--required only small sums, and both had conceived the idea that, as the bank was about to fail, it would be all one to Ovington whether he obliged them or not. It would be but a hundred or so the less for the creditors, and as the bank had sold their pledged stocks they thought that it owed them something. They had still influence, their desperate straits were not yet known; if he obliged them they would do this and that and the other--nebulous things--for him.
Ovington, of course, could do nothing for them, but to harden his heart against their appeals was not a good preparation for the work before him, and when he entered the bank five minutes before ten, he had to brace himself in order to show an unmoved front to the clerks.
He need not have troubled himself. Rodd knew all, and the two lads, on their way to the bank that morning, had been badgered out of such powers of observation as they possessed. They had been followed, cornered, snatched in this direction and that, rudely questioned, even threatened. Were they going to open? Where was the gaffer? Was he gone? They had been wellnigh bothered out of their lives, and more than once had been roughly handled. It seemed as if all Aldersbury was against them--and they did not like it. But Ovington had the knack of attaching men to him, the lads were loyal, and they had returned only hard words to those who waylaid them. Pay? They could pay all the dirty money in Aldersbury! Mr. Ovington? Well, they'd see. They'd see where he was, and be licking his boots in a week's time. And they'd better take their hands off them! The stouter even threatened fisticuffs. A little more and he'd give his questioners a lick over the chops. Come now, give over, or he'd show them a trick of Dutch Sam's they wouldn't like.
The two arrived at the bank, panting and indignant, their coats half off their backs; and Rodd, whose impeccable respectability no one had ventured to assail, had to say a few sharp words before they settled down and the counter assumed the calm and orderly aspect that, in his eyes, the occasion required. He was himself simmering with indignation, but he let no sign of it appear. He had made all his arrangements beforehand, seen every book in its place, and the cash where it could be handled--and a decent quantity, sufficient to impose on the vulgar--laid in sight. After a few words had been exchanged between him and Ovington, the latter retired to the desk behind the curtain, and the other three took their places. Nothing remained but to watch--the seniors with trepidation, the juniors with a not unpleasant excitement--the minute hand of the clock. It wanted three minutes of ten.
And already, though from their places behind the counter the clerks could not see it, the watching groups before the bank had grown into a crowd. It lined the opposite pavement, it hung a fringe two-deep on the steps of the Butter Cross, it extended into the Market Place, it stretched itself half-way down the hill. And it made itself heard. The voices of those who passed along the pavement, the scraps of talk half caught, the sudden exclamation, merged in a murmur not loud but continuous, and fraught with something of menace. Once, on the fringe of the gathering, there was an outburst of booing, but it ceased as suddenly as it had risen, suppressed by the more sober element; and once a hand tried the doors, a voice surprisingly loud, cried, "They're fast enough!" and footsteps retreated across the pavement.
The driver of a cart descending the hill called to "Make way! Make way!" and that, too, reached those within almost as plainly as if it had been said in the room. Something, too, happened on it, for a shout of laughter followed.
It wanted two--it wanted one minute of ten. Rodd gave the order to open.
The younger clerk stepped forward and drew the bolts. He turned the key, and opened one leaf of the door. The other was thrust open from without. The clerk slid under the counter to his place. They came in.
They came in, three abreast, elbowing and pushing one another in their efforts to be first. In a moment they were at the counter, darting suspicious glances at the clerks and angry looks at one another, and with them entered an atmosphere of noise and contention, of trampling feet and peevish exclamations. The bank, so still a moment before, was filled with clamor. There were tradesmen among them, a little uncertain of themselves and thankful that Ovington was not visible, and one or two bluff red-faced farmers who cared for nobody, and slapped their books down on the counter; and there were also a few, of the better sort, who looked straight before them and endeavored to see as little as possible--with a sprinkling of small fry, clerks and lodging-house keepers and a coal-hawker, each with his dirty note gripped tight in his fist. The foremost rapped on the counter and cried "Here, Mister, I'm first!" "No, I!" "Here, you, please attend to me!" They pressed their claims rudely, while those in the rear uttered impatient remonstrances, holding their books or their notes over the heads of others in the attempt to gain attention. In a moment the bank was full--full to the doors, full of people, full of noise.
Rodd's cold eye travelled over them, measured them, weighed them. He was filled with an immense contempt for them, for their folly, their greed, their selfishness. He raised his hand for silence. "This is not a cock-fight," he said in a tone as withering as his eye. "This is a bank. When you gentlemen have settled who comes first. I will attend to you." And then, as the noise only broke out afresh and more loudly, "Well, suppose I begin at the left hand," he said. He passed to that end of the counter. "Now, Mr. Buffery, what can I do for you. Got your book?"
But Mr. Buffery had not got his book, as Rodd had noticed. On that the cashier slowly drew from a shelf below the counter a large ledger, and, turning the leaves, began a methodical search for the account.
But this was too much for the patience of the man last on the right, who saw six before him, and had left no one to take care of his shop.
"But, see here," he cried imperiously. "Mr. Rodd, I'm in a hurry! If that young man at the desk could attend to me I shouldn't take long."
Rodd, keeping his place in the book with his finger, looked at him.
"Do you want to pay in, Mr. Bevan?" he asked gravely.
"No. I want forty-two, seven, ten. Here's my cheque."
"You want cash?"
"That's it."
"Well, I'm the cashier in this bank. No one else pays cash. That's the rule of the bank. Now, Mr. Buffery," leisurely turning back to the page in the ledger, and running his finger down it. "Thirty-five, two, six. That's right, is it?"
"That's right, sir." Buffery knuckled his forehead gratefully.
"You've brought a cheque?"
But Buffery had not brought a cheque. Rodd shrugged his shoulders, called the senior clerk forward, and entrusted the customer, who was no great scholar, to his care. Then he closed the ledger, returned it carefully to the shelf, and turned methodically to the next in the line. "Now, Mr. Medlicott, what do you want? Are you paying, or drawing?"
Mr. Medlicott grinned, and sheepishly handed in a cheque. "I'll draw that," he mumbled, perspiring freely, while from the crowd behind him, shuffling their feet and breathing loudly, there rose a laugh. Rodd brought out the ledger again, and verified the amount. "Right," he said presently, and paid over the sum in Dean's notes and gold.
The man fingered the notes and hesitated. Rodd, about to pass to the next customer, paused. "Well, ain't they right?" he said. "Dean's notes. Anything the matter with them?"
The man took them without more, and Rodd paid the next and the next in the same currency, knowing that it would be remarked. "I'll give them a jog while I can," he thought. "They deserve it." And, sure enough, every note of that bank that he paid out was presented across the counter at Dean's within the hour. It gave Mr. Dean something to think about.
No one, in truth, could have done the work better than Rodd. He was so cool, so precise, so certain of himself. Nothing put him out. He plodded through his usual routine at his usual leisurely pace. He recked nothing of the impatient shuffling crowd on the other side of the counter, nothing of the greedy eyes that grudged every motion of his hand. They might not have existed for him. He looked through them.
A plodder, he had no nerves. He was the right man in the right place.
At noon, taking with him a slip of paper, he went to report to Ovington, who had retired to the parlor. They had paid out seventeen hundred pounds in the two hours. At this rate they could go on for a long time. There was only one large account in the room--should he call it up and pay it? It might have a good effect.
Ovington agreed, and Rodd returned to the counter. His eye sought out Mr. Meredith. "I don't know what you're doing here," he said austerely. "But I suppose your time is worth something. If you'll pass up your cheque I'll let you go."
The small fry clamored, but Rodd looked through them. "Eight hundred and ten," said Meredith with a sigh of relief, passing his cheque over the heads of those before him. He was not ashamed of his balance, but for the moment he was ashamed of himself. He began to suspect that he had let himself be carried away with a lot of silly small chaps--yet his fingers itched to hold the money.
Rodd confirmed the account, fluttered a packet of notes, counted them thrice and slowly, and tossed them to Mr. Meredith. "I make them right," he said, "but you'd better count them." Then, to one or two who were muttering something about illegal preference, "Bless your innocent hearts," he said, "you'll all be paid!" And he took the next in order as if nothing had happened.
It had its effect, and so had a thing that half an hour later broke the dreary monotony of paying out. A man at the back who had just pressed in--for the crowd, reinforced by new arrivals, was very nearly as large as at the hour of opening--raised his voice, complaining bitterly that he could not stay there all day, and that he wanted to pay in some money and go about his business.
There was a stir of surprise. A dozen turned to look at him.
"Good lord!" someone exclaimed.
Only Rodd was unmoved. "Get a pay slip," he said to the senior clerk, who had been pretty well employed filling in cheques for the illiterate and examining notes. "Now, gentlemen, fair play. Let his pass through. Oh, it's Mr. Walker, is it? How much, Mr. Walker?"
"Two seven six, ten," said Mr. Walker, laying a heavy canvas bag on the counter. Rodd untied the neck of the bag and upset the contents, notes and gold, before him. He counted the money with professional deftness, whilst the clerk filled in the slip. "How's your brother?"
he asked.
"Pretty tidy."
"And how are things in Wolverhampton?"
"So, so! But not so bad as they were."
"Thank you. You're the only sensible man I've seen to-day, and we shall not forget it. Now, gentlemen, next please."