Mr. Bingle. George Barr McCutcheon
well!" and the man at his right elbow said "st! st! st!" with his tongue in a most reproachful manner. They could understand Mr. Bingle's absence for three whole days, having got wind of a death in the family, but, for the life of them, they couldn't see what he meant by spoiling a perfectly clean record for punctuality when he might have remained away for the entire day, just as well as not, instead of upsetting a hallowed tradition in the bank by coming in forty minutes late.
Moreover, Mr. Bingle was confident that all of the high officials in the bank, from the president down to the seventh assistant cashier, had noticed his tremendous shortcoming, and that they were even now whispering among themselves that he ought to be discharged forthwith. He could feel people glaring at him from behind; he could feel the president's eyes, and the four vice-presidents' eyes, and the chairman of the board's eyes and all of the directors' eyes boring holes through the partitions to fix their accusing gaze upon him as he bent nervously over the huge ledger and tried to shrink into invisibility. He had committed a heinous, inexcusable, unpardonable offence. He would have to pay the penalty. After all these years of faithful service, he would be kicked out in disgrace; some one else would be sitting in his place after luncheon and some one else would be hanging his coat and hat in the locker he had used for fifteen years without—His eyes grew misty as he bent a little closer to the page and tried to focus his thoughts on what was actually before him.
What difference would it make to these heartless plutocrats and overlords when he told them that his wife was ill and that he could not leave his home until the doctor had come to reassure him? What did they know about connubial happiness and connubial obligations? They would stare at him coldly—or perhaps laugh in his face—and say that the fate of a great banking institution could not be put in jeopardy just because Mrs. Bingle happened to be critically ill. Mr. Bingle, for the first time in his life, began to appreciate his own importance. He began to realise that in all likelihood the bank would go to pieces as the result of his failure to appear at his desk at the appointed minute. He recalled having seen the first vice-president and the cashier in close conversation as he slunk through the little passage behind the latter's office, and he remembered also with sickening clearness that they stopped talking and stared at him as he hurried by. And, now that he thought of it, the first vice-president had smiled pleasantly and had said something that sounded like "good morning, Mr. Bingle," although it certainly couldn't have been that. It was regarded as especially ominous when an official of the bank said good-morning to a clerk or a bookkeeper. It meant, according to tradition, that his days were numbered. It was a sort of preliminary sentence. Later on, there would come a summons to appear at the "office."
Mr. Bingle sat on his stool, his feet hooked rigidly in the stretchers as if prepared to resist any effort to yank him out of the place he had held for fifteen years, and all the while he was listening for the voice of the messenger at his shoulder, ordering him to step into Mr. Force's room.
The trip to Syracuse had been too much for Mrs. Bingle. The railway coaches were cold; she shivered nearly all the way up and all the way back, notwithstanding Melissa's furs and the extra suit of flannels she had donned at Mr. Bingle's suggestion. She came home with a frightful cold and a temperature that frightened her husband almost out of his boots.
She was not in the habit of taking long journeys by train. As a matter of fact, she had never been farther away from Manhattan Island than Hartford, Connecticut, and that experience befell her in the middle of an extremely torrid June. Perhaps a half-dozen times in the fifteen years of her married life she had gone to Peekskill to visit her mother and a married sister, but always in warm weather. Not that she was too poor to make the trip to Peekskill as often as she liked, but her mother and sister made it unnecessary by coming to New York for frequent and sometimes protracted visits at the Bingle apartment, and usually without first inquiring whether it would be convenient or otherwise. She very sensibly realised that Mr. Bingle saw quite enough of his wife's relatives in this way, and refused to drag him into the country to see more of them. He had better use for his Sundays, and as for his vacations, they were always spent at home in the laudable effort to save a little money against the rainy day that people are always talking about. So Mrs. Bingle stayed at home, and contrived to love her good little husband more and more as each narrow day went by, winter and summer, year in and year out, and not once did the iron of discontent enter her soul. Some day, when they could really afford it, they were going away for a month's fishing-trip in the wilds of Maine, but all that could wait. It was something to look forward to, and there is a lot in that.
Neither of them had ever dreamed that Syracuse was so near to the North Pole, nor had they the remotest idea that the weather could be so cold anywhere on earth as it was in the upper part of New York State. The coldest days they had ever known in New York City—and they had always believed that nothing could be colder—were balmy when compared with that awful day on the outskirts of Syracuse—that bleak, blighting day in the wind-swept graveyard where the mother of Thomas Bingle slept.
They fairly shrivelled in their skins as they stood beside the open grave and saw, through blurred eyes, the last of Uncle Joe. Both of Mr. Bingle's ears were frozen quite stiff. A much be-furred undertaker's assistant rubbed snow on them with what seemed to be unnecessary vigour and told him to have 'em looked after when he got back to New York. They were ugly things, those ears of his, and Mr. Bingle was acutely conscious of their size and colour as he sat at his desk and waited for word to come to "the office." A sudden and almost insupportable itching of his heels filled him with fresh alarm, and for one ghastly moment he forgot his ears and his crime. Were his heels frost-bitten? If so—then, what was to become of him?
"Get your uncle buried all right?" inquired his left-hand neighbour, suddenly speaking out of the void. Mr. Bingle's reply was a guilty, bewildered start. The man went on: "What did he die of?"
"Oh," said Mr. Bingle hazily, "most assuredly."
"I said, what ailed him?"
"Why, he was dead," said Mr. Bingle, vaguely surprised by the other's obtuseness. "That's why we buried him."
"I see," said the questioner, after staring hard for a moment. He edged a little farther away from Mr. Bingle and shot a swift glance of apprehension in the direction of the door.
"I couldn't help being late," ventured Mr. Bingle, his first apology in fifteen years. "My wife is sick, Jenkins—mighty sick. The doctor couldn't come at once, so I had to wait. She—"
"Say," said Jenkins nervously, "the old man didn't die of anything catching, did he?"
"Catching?"
"I mean contagious. Your wife hasn't caught anything from him, has she? If she has, you oughtn't to come around here carrying—"
"He died of old age," said Mr. Single stiffly.
"Sure?"
"Of course."
"Well, we all catch that if we live long enough," said Jenkins, considerably relieved. "How old was he?"
"Seventy-three."
"Leave anything?"
Mr. Bingle was suddenly bereft of all power of speech. Three men were standing just outside the long bronze caging that enclosed the bookkeeping-department, and they were looking at him with a directness that was even more pronounced than the stare of utter dismay with which he favoured them. There could be no mistake: they were discussing him—Thomas Bingle! And they were discussing him with unquestionable seriousness. His heart flopped down to his heels and his poor ears burned with a fierceness that caused him to fear that they were on the point of bursting into flames. The first vice-president was pointing him out to the president, there could be no doubt about that; and the pompous president was bobbing his head in a most extraordinary manner, there could be no doubt about that either. The third man of the trio was the chief watchman, and he was looking at Mr. Bingle as a cat looks at a captured mouse. It was all over! They were about to arrest him for embezzlement or murder or something equally as heinous. Mr. Bingle turned colder than he had been at any time during his stay in the ice-bound city of Syracuse.
Then the trio abruptly turned away and left him sitting there, frozen to the marrow. He tried to swallow, but his throat was