Part 22 (1/2)

Edlinger, the cas.h.i.+er--a middle-aged gentleman of deliberation, discretion, and method.

”I was kind of expecting Sam Turner round again, pretty soon,” said Mr. Edlinger. ”Sam's been examining us now, for about four years. I guess you'll find us all right, though, considering the tightness in business. Not overly much money on hand, but able to stand the storms, sir, stand the storms.”

”Mr. Turner and I have been ordered by the Comptroller to exchange districts,” said the examiner, in his decisive, formal tones. ”He is covering my old territory in Southern Illinois and Indiana. I will take the cash first, please.”

Perry Dorsey, the teller, was already arranging his cash on the counter for the examiner's inspection. He knew it was right to a cent, and he had nothing to fear, but he was nervous and fl.u.s.tered.

So was every man in the bank. There was something so icy and swift, so impersonal and uncompromising about this man that his very presence seemed an accusation. He looked to be a man who would never make nor overlook an error.

Mr. Nettlewick first seized the currency, and with a rapid, almost juggling motion, counted it by packages. Then he spun the sponge cup toward him and verified the count by bills. His thin, white fingers flew like some expert musician's upon the keys of a piano. He dumped the gold upon the counter with a crash, and the coins whined and sang as they skimmed across the marble slab from the tips of his nimble digits. The air was full of fractional currency when he came to the halves and quarters. He counted the last nickle and dime.

He had the scales brought, and he weighed every sack of silver in the vault. He questioned Dorsey concerning each of the cash memoranda--certain checks, charge slips, etc., carried over from the previous day's work--with unimpeachable courtesy, yet with something so mysteriously momentous in his frigid manner, that the teller was reduced to pink cheeks and a stammering tongue.

This newly-imported examiner was so different from Sam Turner. It had been Sam's way to enter the bank with a shout, pa.s.s the cigars, and tell the latest stories he had picked up on his rounds. His customary greeting to Dorsey had been, ”h.e.l.lo, Perry! Haven't skipped out with the boodle yet, I see.” Turner's way of counting the cash had been different, too. He would finger the packages of bills in a tired kind of way, and then go into the vault and kick over a few sacks of silver, and the thing was done. Halves and quarters and dimes? Not for Sam Turner. ”No chicken feed for me,” he would say when they were set before him. ”I'm not in the agricultural department.” But, then, Turner was a Texan, an old friend of the bank's president, and had known Dorsey since he was a baby.

While the examiner was counting the cash, Major Thomas B.

Kingman--known to every one as ”Major Tom”--the president of the First National, drove up to the side door with his old dun horse and buggy, and came inside. He saw the examiner busy with the money, and, going into the little ”pony corral,” as he called it, in which his desk was railed off, he began to look over his letters.

Earlier, a little incident had occurred that even the sharp eyes of the examiner had failed to notice. When he had begun his work at the cash counter, Mr. Edlinger had winked significantly at Roy Wilson, the youthful bank messenger, and nodded his head slightly toward the front door. Roy understood, got his hat, and walked leisurely out, with his collector's book under his arm. Once outside, he made a bee-line for the Stockmen's National. That bank was also getting ready to open. No customers had, as yet, presented themselves.

”Say, you people!” cried Roy, with the familiarity of youth and long acquaintance, ”you want to get a move on you. There's a new bank examiner over at the First, and he's a stem-winder. He's counting nickles on Perry, and he's got the whole outfit bluffed. Mr.

Edlinger gave me the tip to let you know.”

Mr. Buckley, president of the Stockmen's National--a stout, elderly man, looking like a farmer dressed for Sunday--heard Roy from his private office at the rear and called him.

”Has Major Kingman come down to the bank yet?” he asked of the boy.

”Yes, sir, he was just driving up as I left,” said Roy.

”I want you to take him a note. Put it into his own hands as soon as you get back.”

Mr. Buckley sat down and began to write.

Roy returned and handed to Major Kingman the envelope containing the note. The major read it, folded it, and slipped it into his vest pocket. He leaned back in his chair for a few moments as if he were meditating deeply, and then rose and went into the vault. He came out with the bulky, old-fas.h.i.+oned leather note case stamped on the back in gilt letters, ”Bills Discounted.” In this were the notes due the bank with their attached securities, and the major, in his rough way, dumped the lot upon his desk and began to sort them over.

By this time Nettlewick had finished his count of the cash. His pencil fluttered like a swallow over the sheet of paper on which he had set his figures. He opened his black wallet, which seemed to be also a kind of secret memorandum book, made a few rapid figures in it, wheeled and transfixed Dorsey with the glare of his spectacles.

That look seemed to say: ”You're safe this time, but--”

”Cash all correct,” snapped the examiner. He made a dash for the individual bookkeeper, and, for a few minutes there was a fluttering of ledger leaves and a sailing of balance sheets through the air.

”How often do you balance your pa.s.s-books?” he demanded, suddenly.

”Er--once a month,” faltered the individual bookkeeper, wondering how many years they would give him.

”All right,” said the examiner, turning and charging upon the general bookkeeper, who had the statements of his foreign banks and their reconcilement memoranda ready. Everything there was found to be all right. Then the stub book of the certificates of deposit.

Flutter--flutter--zip--zip--check! All right. List of over-drafts, please. Thanks. H'm-m. Unsigned bills of the bank, next. All right.

Then came the cas.h.i.+er's turn, and easy-going Mr. Edlinger rubbed his nose and polished his gla.s.ses nervously under the quick fire of questions concerning the circulation, undivided profits, bank real estate, and stock owners.h.i.+p.

Presently Nettlewick was aware of a big man towering above him at his elbow--a man sixty years of age, rugged and hale, with a rough, grizzled beard, a ma.s.s of gray hair, and a pair of penetrating blue eyes that confronted the formidable gla.s.ses of the examiner without a flicker.

”Er--Major Kingman, our president--er--Mr. Nettlewick,” said the cas.h.i.+er.