By noon that day, in the lulls between customers at the wicket, Vaniman had had a succession of run-ins with the demon of drowsiness—a particularly mischievous elf, sometimes, in business hours. Whenever he caught himself snapping back into wakefulness he found Vona's twinkle of amusement waiting for him.
Once she pointed to the big figures on the day-by-day calendar on the wall. The date was February 21st. “Console yourself, Frank, dear,” she advised, teasing him. “The bank will be closed to-morrow and you can make Washington's Birthday your sleep day! But I do hope you can stay awake at our play this evening.”
“The man who invented sleep as a blessing didn't take into account city brokers who change their minds about trains,” he returned. “I hope old Ike Jones will sing that 'Ring, ting! Foo loo larry, lo day' song of his all the way coming up from Levant. It'll be about the sort of punishment that Behind-time Barnes deserves.”
A few minutes later the cashier was jumped out of another incipient nap by the clamor of bells. The two horses that whisked past, pulling a double-seated sleigh, were belted with bells. A big man with a lambrequin mustache was filling the rear seat measurably well. Folks recognized the team as a “let-hitch” from Levant.
“Mr. Barnes comes late, but he comes in style and with all his bells,” Vona suggested.
The equipage swung up beside the tavern porch and the big man threw off the robes and stamped in, leaving the driver to take the horses to the stable.
Landlord Files had furnished an accompaniment for the clangor of the bells; he was pounding his dinner gong.
The new arrival had a foghorn voice and used it in hearty volume in telling Mr. Files that his music was all right and mighty timely! “And that alligator seems to be calling for his grub, too,” he remarked, on his way to hang up his coat. “But he doesn't look any hungrier than I feel.”
“Room?” inquired the landlord, hopefully, swinging the register book and pulling a pen out of a withered potato.
“No room! Just dinner. I expect to be out of here by night.”
Mr. Files stabbed the potato with a vicious pen thrust. He knew food capacity when he viewed it; there would be some profit from a lodging, but none from a two-shilling meal served to a man who had compared himself with that open-mouthed saurian.
But the guest grabbed the penstock while it was still vibrating. He wrote across the book, with great flourishes: “Fremont Starr. State Bank Examiner. February 21st.”
“A matter of record, landlord! Show's I'm here. Tells the world I was here on date noted. Never can tell when the law will call for records. Hotel registers are fine evidence. Always keep your registers.”
“I've had that one eleven years, and it 'ain't been filled up yet,” averred Mr. Files, inspecting the potentate's signature as sourly as if he were estimating by how much the lavish use of ink had reduced the possible dinner profit. “You're the new appointment, hey? I heard you speak, one time, over at the political rally in the shire town.”
“Both my enemies and my friends would have advised you to stay right here on your porch—saying that you could hear me just as well, if you didn't care to make the trip to the shire,” said Mr. Starr, lifting the mat of his mustache in a wide smile. “But when they call me 'Foghorn Fremont' I'm never one mite offended. 'Let your light shine and your voice be heard,' is my motto in politics.”
“Shouldn't wonder if it's a good one, when they get to passing around the offices,” admitted Files. He started on his way to the kitchen.
At that moment President Britt entered, having answered the gong with the promptitude of a fireman chasing a box alarm.
“What have you on the fire, landlord?” called Mr. Starr, absorbed in the dinner topic.
“Boiled dinner!”
Britt did not show the enthusiasm that was exhibited by the other guest.
“Nothing like a boiled dinner after a long ride,” Mr. Starr affirmed. “Plenty of cabbage with mine, if you'll be so kind!”
Files gave Mr. Britt some information that he thought might be of interest. “Here's the new bank examiner. Seeing that you probably have business together, I'll set both of you at the same table.” He retired.
After the commonplaces of getting acquainted, the two tacked the boiled dinner.
“Let's see—who's your cashier?” inquired Starr, chewing vigorously behind the mask of his mustache.
“Young fellow named Vaniman. I have let him take full charge of the bank business. He seems to know all the ropes.”
“Poor policy, Britt! Poor policy!” stated the examiner, vehemently. “Not a word to say against Vaniman—” He halted on the word and opened his eyes on Britt. “Vaniman! A name that sticks. There was a Vaniman of Verona. Easy to remember! There was some sort of a money snarl, as I recollect.”
“It was the young chap's father.”
“And you're letting the son run your bank?”
“I'm not the kind that visits the sins of the fathers on the children,” loftily stated the president. “Furthermore, a burnt child dreads the fire. I heard a railroad manager say that a trainman who had let an accident happen by his negligence was worth twice as much to the road as he was before. You don't say that I made a bad pick, do you?”
“Not a word to say against Vaniman!” repeated Starr, slashing his cabbage. “I never guess about any proposition—I go at it! But what I'm saying to you, Britt, is what I'm saying to all the easy-going country-town bankers. 'You may have second editions of the Apostle Paul for your cashiers,' I say, 'but every time you sign a statement of condition without close and careful audit you're bearing false witness.' And being a new broom that proposes to sweep clean, I'm tempted to poke it just as hard to slack presidents and directors as I am to an embezzling cashier who has been given plenty of rope to run as he wants! I'm on the job examining banks!” He was a vigorous man, Examiner Starr! He showed it by the way he went at his corned beef.
President Britt was perturbed; his eyes shifted; he was even pale. “If that's the way you feel about it, I hope you'll give our little bank a good going-over. I was glad to read of your appointment, Mr. Starr!”
“Uncle Whittum isn't on this job any longer,” stated the examiner, not needing, in Britt's case, as a banker, to dwell upon the lax methods of the easy-going predecessor.
A half hour later, Starr, with his unbuttoned fur-lined overcoat outspread as he strode, giving him the aspect of a scaling aeroplane, marched from the tavern to the bank with Britt.
Vaniman had his mouth opened to welcome a man named Barnes, but he was presented to Bank-Examiner Starr and surprise placed him at a disadvantage in the meeting. The torpor of drowsiness made him appear stupid and ill at ease in the presence of this forceful man who stamped in and proceeded to exploit and enjoy his newly acquired authority. Mr. Starr hung up his coat and hat and swooped like a hawk on the daybook, at the same time calling for the book of “petty cash.”
“First of all, the finger on the pulse of the patient, Cashier,” he declared, grimly jovial. “Then we'll have a look at the tongue, and study the other symptoms.”
President Britt went away to his own office.
Examiner Starr, confining himself to his announced policy of grabbing in on the running operations of the bank at the moment of his entry, studied the petty-cash accounts and checked up the daybook with thoroughness. He found everything all right and grunted his acknowledgment of that discovery.
Then he began on the ledgers, assuring Vona with ponderous gallantry that he wouldn't get in her way; he averred that he had a comparison system of his own, and showed the pride of “the new broom.”
After a time it was apparent that Mr. Starr was having trouble. He added columns of figures over again and scowled; his system was plainly trigged.
“Young lady, where's your comptometer?” he demanded, after he had made a quick survey of the office.
“We have never used one, sir.”
“One is indispensable these days in a bank—especially when a bookkeeper can't add a column of figures correctly by the old method.”
She flushed and her lips quivered. “I'm sure I do add correctly, sir. My books always balance.”
“Add that column, young lady!” He indicated the column with the plunging pressure of a stubby digit, and stood so close to her, while she toiled up the line of figures, that his breath fanned her hair.
Vaniman looked on, sympathizing, feeling sure that the bluff inquisitor had made a mistake of his own.
Her confusion under Starr's baleful espionage sent her wits scattering. She jotted down the total, as she made it.
“Wrong!” announced the examiner. “And your figures are different, even, from the wrong total you have on the books. Try again.”
She set her lips and controlled her emotions and went over the work once more.
Starr exhibited figures which he had jotted on a bit of paper that he had palmed. “You're right, as the figures stand! But your book total doesn't agree with those figures. Now what say?”
Vona was distinctly in no condition to say anything sensible; she stared from the figures to Starr, showing utter amazement, and then she mutely appealed to the cashier.
“I'm sure that Miss Harnden is remarkably accurate in her work, Mr. Starr,” asserted the young man. “I have been in the habit of going over it, myself, and I have found no errors.”
“Oh, you go over it, do you? That's good!” But Starr's tone was not one of satisfied indorsement. He picked up the big book and carried it to the center table. He fished from his waistcoat pocket a small reading glass, unfolded the lenses, and studied the page. He turned other pages and performed the same minute inspection. Then he took the ledger to the window and held page after page against the glass, propping the book in his big hands.
When he turned, Vona was sitting in a chair, trembling, tears in her eyes, apprehension ridging her face.
“Cashier Vaniman, I don't want to hurt this young lady's feelings any more than I have. There's no sense in blaming her until I understand the which and the why of this thing. I have found column after column added wrongly. Perhaps she has done her work, originally, all right. But the pages of this ledger are pretty well speckled with erasures. The two of you will have to thresh it out between yourselves. I'm looking to you as the responsible party in this bank, Vaniman. I'll do the rest of my talking to you. After you have found out what the trouble is you must explain to me.”
“There can be no trouble with our books!” But the cashier stammered; his incredulity would not permit him to discuss the matter then or to offer any sort of explanation; in his amazement he could not think of any possible explanation. He could not convince himself that Vona needed other protection than her own thoroughness and rectitude gave her; however, he wanted to extend his protection.
“If anything is wrong with the accounts, you may most certainly look to me, Mr. Starr. I assume full responsibility. I have found Miss Harnden to be most accurate.”
“I ought to have been through with this small bank and away by night,” grumbled the examiner. “But I'm going to give you a fair show, Vaniman, by waiting over. You've got this evening—and to-morrow is a holiday, and you can take that day, if you need it, to get this tangle straightened out. I'm stopping my work right here.” He slammed the ledger shut and tossed it on the girl's desk. “There's no sense in going through your cash in the vault till I can check by the book accounts. But, bless my soul! I can't understand by what rhyme or reason those figures have been put into the muddle they're in. It's coarse work. I'll be frank and say that it doesn't look like a sane man's attempt to put something over. That's why I'm lenient with you and am not sticking one of my closure notices on to your front door. Now get busy, so that you can be sure it won't go up on the door day after to-morrow.”
He took down his coat and hat and when he left the room they heard him go into Tasper Britt's office across the corridor.
The stricken lovers faced each other, appalled, mystified, questioning with the looks they exchanged.
“Frank,” the girl wailed, “you know I haven't—”
“I know you have been faithful and careful, in every stroke of your pen, dear. Whatever it is, it's not your fault.”
“But what has happened to the books?” she queried, winking back her tears, trying hard to meet him on the plane of his calmness; he was getting his feelings in hand.
“I propose to find out before I close my eyes this night,” he told her, gravely.
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