Castle "took" his increase with dignity, making no comments and voicing no rapture. Bill watched him from his ledger.

"Say, Alf," he said at last, under a growing deviltry, "you seem to be a favorite. Now I don't think you're worth eight hundred dollars a year--honestly, do you?"

The teller's delicate skin became pink.

"I don't blame you for being sore, Watson," he retorted, gingerly for him, "when head office shows discrimination; it hurts, I suppose."

Watson grinned. He rarely lost his temper. He sighed comically.

"I can't help if my name isn't Castle," he said, coolly.

The teller opened the door of his cage and rushed into the manager's room.

"Mr. Robb," he cried, in his tenor tones, "I'm not going to stand for the insults of Watson any longer."

"What's the matter now?" asked Robb, not encouragingly.

"Watson's talking of favoritism and that sort of rot. He knows I earn all I get from head office."

"That's right enough, Alf," said Robb, calmly. "You earn what you get, but you also get what you earn. The rest of us don't."

The teller was dumfounded. The way the manager spoke would have halted him even had he considered the words unjust--which he could not. But Castle's sense of dignity was too great to endure argument at that moment; he flushed with humiliation and withdrew unceremoniously from Robb's office.

Robb would not give his teller the satisfaction of calling Watson on the carpet, but when Castle had quit work for the day, the manager accosted Bill.

"Were you rubbing it into Alf to-day?" he asked, leaning against the ledger desk.

"Just a little," said Bill, smiling.

"You want to go easy, Watson. Some day Alf will be an inspector or something, and then he'll remember thee."

Bill looked up from his work quickly.

"Surely we don't have to curry the favor of a brat like that!" Then, in a moment, "His preaching against me to-day didn't seem to get him in very strong with the manager, Mr. Robb?"

Robb made a face.

"Oh, I don't pay much attention to him. Sometimes I feel sorry for him, and then again I can't help despising him. He's got bank aristocracy in him, and that makes it hard for him among us common fellows. I think I insulted him this afternoon--"

Bill interrupted with:

"Wouldn't be surprised if he squealed it to the Big Eye."

The boys called Inspector I. Castle the "Big Eye," because of his initial and of his facility for seeing things; also for other reasons.

"Oh, no," said the manager, sceptically, "I don't think he's that much of a cad."

"Well, you know, Mr. Robb, he'd soothe his poor little conscience with the thought that it is a fellow's duty to report any treason against head office. That's the policy the bank itself pursues. Why should Castle have any more honor than he is taught to have?"

Evan pretended to be busy, but he was listening.

Mr. Robb laughed.

"I'm ashamed of you, Watson," he said, and still smiling, walked away.

Once inside his office, however, his face straightened and he looked steadily at a corner of the ceiling.

When Castle left the bank, about four-thirty, he walked soberly up town to the Coign Hotel and ascended to his room. It was a nice room for the teller of a town bank to occupy, boasting a wicker chair, a leather couch and a bra.s.s bed. A couple of rather pretentious pictures hung on the walls, otherwise decorated with pennants. The pennants were all Alfred knew about colleges. A desk filled one corner of the room, and there was the atmosphere of an office over all. The wonder is that Alf didn't have his bed encaged.

To his desk the nifty bankman turned his eyes. After washing his hands and adjusting his tie, he sat down to write.

Twenty-four hours after the letter he had written was mailed Inspector I. Castle received one addressed in his nephew's handwriting.

Before a week had pa.s.sed Sam Robb enjoyed the privilege of reading a circular. It dealt with loyalty to the bank. One paragraph read as follows:

"We wish to warn the managers and staff against the common tendency to ridicule bank customs and establishments. Some of our employes have gone so far as to criticize head office indiscriminately in the matter of salaries, etc. We think it only fair that instances of disaffection should be reported to us, so that we may ascertain who is and who is not loyal to the bank, and reward accordingly."

The circular did not say "punish accordingly." That would not have been diplomatic.

Robb's face grew white--not with fear. All day he was silent, although it could not be said that he was irritable. He seemed uninterested in business and quiet--merely that.

Evan found him sitting moodily in his office late that evening. The savings man had been proving up his ledger. He did not greet the manager; he was going to pa.s.s on in silence when he heard his name spoken from the armchair.

"Yes, sir." He turned toward Mr. Robb.

"Are you in a hurry?" There was no sarcasm in the tone.

Evan sat down.

"No, sir; my time isn't worth much, I guess."

The manager looked at him a.n.a.lytically.

"You're beginning to realize it, are you?"

Nelson explained that he meant nothing by the remark, and Robb grunted discontentedly.

"I want you to see the circular we got to-day, Evan. Here, read that and tell me what you think of it."

While the young man read, the man of forty, the bachelor banker, waited. Robb was a lonesome man. He should have had a son almost as old as Evan, but he had none--and Evan would have to answer. It was somewhat comforting to have a confidant like him.

"Looks as if Castle did write, after all," said Evan, suddenly.

The manager smiled grimly.

"You've guessed it, I think," he said. "How would you like the current ledger, Evan?"

"Fine!"

It never took Evan long to decide anything when his success was at stake. He had unlimited faith in promotions and quite a strong confidence in his own powers. The clerical quirks of banking were day by day disappearing before his persistent faculties, and he was always ready to take on new work for the sake of experience.