The Tale of Timber Town Part 27

When the clerk was satisfied that everything was in order, he said, "Two-hundred-and-fifty pounds. How will you take it, Captain?"

"_I_ don't want to take it," answered the Pilot gruffly. "I'll put it along with the other."

"You wish to deposit it?" said the clerk. "Certainly. You'll need a form."

He drew a printed slip from a box on the counter, and filled it in.

"Sign here, please," he said, indicating with his finger the place of signature.

"No, no," said the old man, evidently annoyed. "You've made it out in _my_ name. It should be in my da'rter's, like all the rest have been."

The clerk made the necessary alteration, and the Pilot signed.

"If you call in this afternoon, I'll give you the deposit receipt," said the clerk.

"Now, really, young man, an't that a bit slow? D'you think I've got nothing better to do than to dodge up and down from the port, waitin'

for your precious receipts?"

The clerk looked surprised that anyone should question his dictum for one moment, but he immediately handed the signed form to a neighbouring clerk for transmission to the manager, or to some functionary only one degree less omnipotent.

"And while we're waiting," said the Pilot, "I'd be much obliged if you'd show me the book where you keep the record of all the monies I've put into your bank."

The clerk conferred with another clerk, who went off somewhere and returned with a heavy tome, which he placed with a bang on the counter.

The Jew turned over the broad leaves with a great rustling. "This inspection of our books is purely optional with us, Captain, but with an old customer like yourself we waive our prerogative."

"Very han'some of you, very han'some indeed. How does she stand?"

The clerk ran his fingers down a long column of figures, and said, "There are a number of deposits in Miss Rose's name. Shall I read the amounts?"

"I've got the receipts in my strong-box. All I want is the total."

"Ten thousand, five hundred pounds," said the clerk.

"And there's this here new lot," said the Pilot.

"Ten thousand, seven hundred and fifty altogether."

The Pilot drew the heavy account book towards him, and verified the clerk's statements. Then he made a note of the sum total, and said, "I'll take that last receipt now, if it's ready."

The clerk reached over to a table, where the paper had been placed by a fellow clerk, and handed it to the gruff old sailor.

"Thank you," said Pilot Summerhayes. "Now I can verify the whole caboodle at my leisure, though I hate figures as the devil hates holy water." He placed the receipt in his inside pocket and b.u.t.toned up his coat. "Good-day," he said, as he turned to go.

"I wish you good morning, Captain."

The Pilot glanced back; his face wearing a look of amus.e.m.e.nt, as though he thought the clerk's effusiveness was too good to be true. Then he nodded, gave a little chuckle, and walked out through the swinging, gla.s.s doors.

The Jew watched the bulky sailor as he moved slowly, like a s.h.i.+p leaving port in heavy weather, with many a lurch and much tacking against an adverse wind. By the expression on the Semitic face you might have thought that Isaac Zahn was beholding some new and interesting object of natural history, instead of a ponderous and grumpy old sailor, who seemed to doubt somewhat the _bona fides_ of the Kangaroo Bank. But the truth was that the young man was dazzled by the personality of one who might command such wealth; it had suddenly dawned on his calculating mind that a large sum of money was standing in the name of Rose Summerhayes; he realised with the clearness of a revelation that there were other fish than Rachel Varnhagen in the sea of matrimony.

The witching hour of lunch was near at hand. Isaac glanced at the clock, the hands of which pointed to five minutes to twelve. As soon as the clock above the Post Office sounded the hour, he left the counter, which was immediately occupied by another clerk, and going to a little room in the rear of the big building, he t.i.tivated his person before a small looking-gla.s.s that hung on the wall, and then, putting on his immaculate hat, he turned his back upon the cares of business for one hour.

His steps led him not in the direction of his victuals, but towards the warehouse of Joseph Varnhagen. There was no hurry in his gait; he sauntered down the street, his eyes observing everything, and with a look of patronising good humour on his dark face, as though he would say, "Really, you people are most amusing. Your style's awful, but I put up with it because you know no better."

He reached the door of Varnhagen's store in precisely the same frame of mind. The grimy, match-lined walls of the merchant's untidy office, the litter of odds and ends upon the floor, the antiquated safe which stood in one corner, all aroused his pity and contempt.

The old Jew came waddling from the back of the store, his body ovoid, his bald head perspiring with the exertion he had put himself to in moving a chest of tea.

"Well, my n.o.ble, vat you want to-day?" he asked, as he waddled to his office-table, and placed upon it a packet of tea, intended for a sample.

"I just looked round to see how you were bobbing up."

"Bobbin' up, vas it? I don't bob up much better for seein' _you_. Good cracious! I vas almost dead, with Packett ill with fever or sometings from that s.h.i.+p outside, and me doin' all his vork and mine as well.

Don't stand round in my vay, ven you see I'm pizzy!" Young Isaac leisurely took a seat by the safe, lighted a cigarette, and looked on amusedly at the merchant's flurry.

"You try to do too much," he said. "You're too anxious to save wages.

What you want is a partner to keep your books, a young man with energy who will look after your interests--and his own. You're just wearing yourself to skin and bone; soon you'll go into a decline, and drop off the hooks."

"Eh? Vat? A decline you call it? Me? Do I look like it?"

The fat little man stood upright, and patted his rotund person.

"It's the wear and tear of mind that I fear will be fatal to you. You have brain-tire written large over every feature. I think you ought to see a doctor and get a nerve tonic. This fear of dying a pauper is rapidly killing you, and who then will fill your shoes?"

"My poy, there is one thing certain--_you_ won't. I got too much sense.

I know a smart feller when I see him, and _you're_ altogetter too slow to please _me_."

"The really energetic man is the one who works with his brains, and leaves others to work with their hands."

"Oh! that's it, eh? Qvite a young Solomon! Vell, _I_ do both."

"And you lose money in consequence."

"I losing money?"

"Yes, _you_. You're dropping behind fast. Crookenden and Co. are outstripping you in every line."

"Perhaps you see my books. Perhaps you see theirs."

"I see their accounts at the bank. I know what their turn-over is; I know yours. You're not in it."

"But they lose their cargo--the s.h.i.+p goes down."

"But they get the insurance, and send forward new orders and make arrangements with us for the consignors to draw on them. Why, they're running rings round you."

"Vell, how can I help it? My mail never come--I don't know vat my beobles are doing. But I send orders, too."

"For how much?"

"Dat's _my_ pizz'ness."