Chapter 4. Forty Minutes Late

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_ CHAPTER IV. FORTY MINUTES LATE

Mr. Bingle was late at the bank the morning after their return from the North. Not in all the years of his connection with the institution had such a thing happened to him--or to the bank, for that matter. He made it a point to be punctual. In his opinion, a man was taking something that did not belong to him when he failed his employer in the matter of promptness. Working AFTER hours to make up the lost time was, in his estimation, a rather cowardly form of penance; it was simply a confession that the delinquent had robbed his master of a certain number of fresh minutes earlier in the day, and was trying to restore them at the end of the day, when he was in no condition to give as good as he had taken.

One could set his watch by Thomas Bingle. All of the clocks, and all of the watches, and all of the clerks in the bank might be late, but NEVER Thomas Bingle. He kept absolutely perfect time, year in and year out. And so, when he came dashing into the bank on this particular morning nearly forty minutes late, every man in the long counting-room jerked out his watch and glanced at its face with an expression of alarm in his eyes, absolutely convinced that he had made the heart- breaking mistake of getting down to work forty minutes too soon. Such a thing as Mr. Bingle getting down forty minutes too late was infinitely more improbable than that all the rest of them should have reported that much too early.

The tardy one was conscious of the concentrated stare of sixty eyes as he slid onto the stool in front of his desk and began to fumble with the pens and blotters. The man at his left elbow said "well, 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 paralysed.

"Gee, that looks bad, Bingle," whispered Jenkins, pityingly. "That was the old man. What--what the dickens have you been up to?"

Mr. Bingle's stiff lips moved but no sound came forth. He was to be discharged! In fifteen years he had been late at his desk but once, and he was to be discharged! What would Mary say? What would become of Mary? What would become of Melissa, now that they couldn't afford to keep a servant?

"You been here longer than any one, too," went on Jenkins. "How long has it been, Bingle?"

"Fifteen years," gulped Mr. Bingle, in a strange, unnatural voice.

"That's longer than the old man himself," said Jenkins. "He's been president less'n twelve years. Say, Bingle, I'm all broke up over it. I--I hope it ain't as bad as we think. Maybe--oh, I say, it's your EARS! That's what it is. Mr. Force was showing him your ears. And say, take it from me, Bingle, they're worth going a long way to see, too. Good Lord, what a relief!" Mr. Bingle actually took hope. Could it be possible? Were frozen ears so rare a sight that the president of a great bank--But even as he grasped at the straw he became convinced that it was very likely to prove his salvation, for, to his amazement and confusion, the cashier and the fourth vice-president strolled up to the caging and regarded him with the gravest interest. He bent his head to the task before him, hoping against hope that it WAS his ears and not his tardiness. And, when he looked up again many minutes afterward, other officials of the bank were looking at him from various points of vantage, and all of them were staring with the most amazing intentness, quite as if they had never seen anything so strange as the man who had sat unnoticed in this very spot for fifteen years and more. Messengers took a peep at him as they circled from window to window; patrons of the bank sauntered past and squinted vaguely in his direction.

Vice-president Force came back a second time and actually pointed him out to an utter stranger, at the same time waving his hand at Mr. Bingle in a most friendly and engaging manner!

The poor bookkeeper reeled on his stool. He laid his pen down, removed the green shade from over his eyes, placed his blotters neatly in the rack, and turning to Jenkins, said:

"I can't stand it, Jenkins. I've--I've just got to know the worst. I'm going to the office."

"With--without being sent for?" gasped Jenkins.

"There's no use putting it off. I--"

A dapper little page appeared at Mr. Bingle's elbow, interrupting him with the curt remark that Mr. Force wanted to see him when it was convenient.

"Convenient?" murmured Mr. Bingle, his eyes bulging.

"Well, great--" began Jenkins.

"That's what he said: convenient," said the page loftily. "Gee, where did you get them ears?"

Mr. Bingle got down from his stool slowly, painfully.

"I guess I'll go now," he said. "It's just as convenient for me to get out now as--"

"I can't understand that 'convenient' business," broke in Jenkins, wrinkling his brow. "Well, good luck, Bingle. I'm sorry."

Sixty wistful, sympathetic eyes followed Mr. Bingle as he made his way out to the passage. The word had gone 'round that "old Bingy" was to get the sack, and every one was saying to himself that if they discharged a man like Bingle for being late it wouldn't be safe for any one to transgress for even the tiniest fraction of an instant.

Half-way down the narrow aisle leading to the offices, Mr. Bingle stopped to wipe his brow and to pull himself together for the coming ordeal. A high-and-mighty young man who had been elevated from a clerkship to the post of third assistant foreign teller, and who no longer deemed it proper to associate with his erstwhile companions in the "galleys," emerged from his cage and, coming abruptly upon the shivering bookkeeper, blinked uncertainly for a moment and then said in what was unmistakably a polite and even respectful tone:

"Good morning, Mr. Bingle. Pleasant day, sir, isn't it?"

If Mr. Bingle had been in a condition to notice such things as miracles, he might have been struck by this one, but he merely said it WAS a pleasant day and resumed his way, utterly oblivious to the fact that a human being had been completely transformed before his very eyes. A few steps farther on he encountered an even mightier force than the third assistant foreign teller: the bank detective.

"Good morning, Mr. Bingle. Nice day, sir," said the bank detective, somewhat eagerly, and stood aside to let the lowly bookkeeper pass without being jostled--as was the custom.

"Morning," said Mr. Bingle, still unimpressed. It seemed to him that every one was evincing a singular interest in the fact that he was about to be discharged on a pleasant day.

Mr. Force was seated at his desk when Bingle entered the room and found himself in the presence of the man who was certain to become president when "the old man" died--an event that would have to occur if the first vice-president's dream of elevation ever came true, for there wasn't the remotest likelihood that he would have the sense of decency to resign, no matter how old or how senile he became in the course of time.

Now, Mr. Force took himself very seriously. Having married an exceedingly wealthy woman after a career in which liveliness had meant more to him than livelihood, he assumed that if he treated the world at large with extreme aloofness it would soon forget--and overlook-- the fact that he had never amounted to a row of pins in the estimation of those who knew him as a harvester in Broadway. Shortly before his marriage--at forty-three--he abandoned an extensive crop of wild oats in the very heart of New York City--announcing that he intended to retire from active business and go to work.

Going to work meant stepping into a bank as its third vice-president the week after his return from a honeymoon spent with a bride who held, in her own right, something over one-half of the entire capital stock of the institution. Her wedding present to him was the third vice-presidency and the everlasting enmity of every director and official in the bank. He accepted both in the spirit in which they were given. To the surprise of his enemies and the scorn of his friends, he promptly settled down and made himself so valuable to the bank that even his wife was vindicated. He managed in one way or another to increase her holdings and soon was in a position to dictate to those officially above him. He dictated so effectually in the case of the first and second vice-president that they preferred to resign rather than to continue the struggle to keep him in his place. Before he had been in the bank a year, he was its first vice-president.

It was generally conceded that the president himself would have been in jeopardy but for the fact that he was the father of Mrs. Force and therefore exempt. In order to clarify the situation, it is necessary to state that the bride inherited her extensive holdings from a former husband, who, it appears, died of old age when she was but twenty-six. It would also appear that her father owed his position as president to the influence of Mr. Force's predecessor, or rather to the influence that his daughter exercised over an old gentleman in his dotage. Be that as it may, the present chief executive of the bank was immune for life. To quote the directorate, he couldn't be FORCED out of office. His son-in-law would be obliged to wait. He could afford to wait. He was forty-four.

It has been said that Mr. Sydney Force was seated at his desk when Thomas Bingle sidled into the luxurious office. It must now be added that he did not retain his seat for more than a second after Mr. Bingle's entrance. In fact, he fairly leaped to his feet, frightening his visitor into a sudden, spasmodic movement of the hand in search of the door-knob and a backward shuffle of both feet at once. The little bookkeeper's alarm was groundless. Mr. Force came forward, beaming, his hand extended.

"How are you, Mr. Bingle? Come right in. Well, well, this is splendid. Too good to be true, 'pon my word it is." He was wringing the little man's hand violently. "I confess that I am surprised that you considered it worth while to come down to the bank at all, sir."

Mr. Bingle was batting his eyes furiously. He was also having a great deal of difficulty with his knees.

"I--I couldn't help it, Mr. Force," he stammered. "I really couldn't. It is the first time in all the years of my connection with--"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Bingle," interrupted Mr. Force, with a somewhat sweeping wave of the hand that took in practically all of the office and yet no spot in particular; "this is Mr. Sigsbee." He then stood aside and permitted Mr. Bingle to discover Mr. Sigsbee, who came hastily out of the whirling background.

"Glad to meet you, sir," said Mr. Sigsbee, giving Mr. Bingle's hand a tremendous squeeze. "I should have known you, Mr. Bingle, anywhere on earth from the description given to me."

Description! Poor Bingle's blood congealed. Description? That dreadful word could have but one application. It was never used except in connection with people who were wanted for crime. The man was a detective!

"Sit down, Mr. Bingle," said Force, with shocking amiability. "Will you smoke?"

"No, thank you," said Mr. Bingle, doing his best to pull himself together and failing completely. "As I was saying, Mr. Force, my wife--"

At this juncture, the door to an adjoining room was thrown open and the bank's president stood revealed. At his back was the chairman of the board and also the cashier, while somewhat indistinctly associated with the sombre elegance of the room beyond were the figures of a peeping stenographer and an open-mouthed secretary whose neck was gallantly stretched almost to the point of dislocation because he was too much of a gentleman to push the little stenographer out of his line of vision.

"Well, well, Bingle!" exclaimed the president, somewhat gustily as he hastened forward. "How are you? That this should happen to you! It is unbelievable!" He was pumping Mr. Bingle's arm. "I don't see how in the world we are to get along without you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why don't you--"

"Wha--what in the name of heaven am I accused of doing?" blurted out Mr. Bingle abjectly. "This is some awful mistake. I--"

"Accused of doing?" exclaimed Mr. Force, frowning perplexedly.

"What say, Bingle?" inquired the president, who wasn't quite certain that his hearing was what it used to be. "What say?"

Mr. Sigsbee interposed, staring hard at the little man. "Haven't you been notified of--Oh, I say, you have at least seen the morning papers?"

"Have they printed anything about me?" gasped Mr. Bingle, sitting down very suddenly. "It's a lie, gentlemen--a lie, I tell you! I haven't done a thing--"

"Do you mean to say--" began Mr. Force, glaring at the shivering little man.

"I'll bring an action against 'em," shouted Mr. Bingle from the depths of the huge chair. "I'll sue 'em for all they're worth if they've--"

"Haven't you seen the newspapers?" demanded Mr. Sigsbee, bending over the occupant of the chair in what that individual mistook for a menacing attitude.

"I--I didn't have time to look at the paper," mumbled Mr. Bingle. "My wife was so miserable that--"

"Well, by Jove!" exclaimed Mr. Force, and then, to Bingle's astonishment, the five other occupants of the room were overtaken by a simultaneous impulse to shout at the top of their voices, all of them crowding close about him and barking unintelligible exclamations into his very teeth, so to speak.

The strangest part of it all was that they were in high good humour and laughed like maniacs. He hadn't the faintest notion what it was all about, but he began to laugh shrilly. He couldn't help it. He certainly didn't feel like laughing. The president was slapping Mr. Force on the back and shouting things that fell upon deaf ears, for Mr. Force was shouting manfully on his own account. The cashier stumbled over a chair in trying to get at Mr. Bingle to grasp his hand, and the chairman of the board began pounding the helpless bookkeeper on the shoulder with a hand that had all of the weight and some of the resilience of a sledge hammer.

It was Mr. Sigsbee who finally settled down to a succinct, intelligent question, and at once had Mr. Bingle's attention.

"Didn't you receive my letter in the morning post?" he demanded.

Mr. Bingle no doubt intended to repeat the word "letter," being vaguely impressed by its significance, but what he uttered was a mystified, syllable-less "le'r?"

"I wrote to say that if it suited your convenience to come to our offices this afternoon at three, I would see to it that the other heirs were present, Mr. Bingle."

"My wife's illness--" began Mr. Bingle hazily, and then brought himself up with a jerk. Heirs? What in the world was the man talking about? "I--I beg pardon, sir. I didn't quite catch that. What--"

Mr. Sigsbee held up his hand, silencing him. Then he turned to the other gentlemen and said in a strained, excited voice:

"I suspect, gentlemen, that it would be better if I were to have a few minutes alone with Mr. Bingle."

"Right!" exclaimed Mr. Force, regarding the bookkeeper with what seemed to be infinite compassion in his eyes. "Stay right where you are, Sigsbee. We'll get out," and he literally shoved the others out of the office, closing the president's door behind him.

"Now, Mr. Bingle," said Sigsbee, drawing a chair up close to the little man's knee, "I want the truth. Have you no--"

"Before heaven, Mr. Sigsbee, I--I swear I am innocent of--"

"Have you no inkling of what has befallen you?" concluded the other.

"No, sir, I haven't," declared Mr. Bingle with conviction.

"Well, my dear sir," said Sigsbee, laying his hand upon Bingle's knee and speaking with grave impressiveness, "your late and lamented uncle, Joseph Hooper, in his will, devises that you are his principal--I might almost say, his sole heir. He has left practically everything to you, sir. I--I pray you, be calm. Do not allow this astonishing, this prodigious--"

"Oh," exclaimed Mr. Bingle, with a huge sigh of relief and a sudden relaxing of all his taut nerves, "I know all about THAT, Mr. Sigsbee. Is that all?"

"All?" with a stare of amazement.

"We often joked about it, poor old Uncle Joe and I. He seemed to enjoy a chuckle once in awhile, in spite of the way the world had used him."

"I now realise that you are quite ignorant about the whole matter, Mr. Bingle. My letter would have enlightened you, of course, but as you did not receive it, I fear that--"

"I didn't open my letters this morning. Quite forgot 'em, sir. You see, Mrs. Bingle came down with a fearful--"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Mr. Sigsbee. "Perhaps it would be well for me to describe myself a little more clearly to you, Mr. Bingle. I am of the firm of Bradlee, Sigsbee & Oppenheim, lawyers. We have been acting for Mr. Hooper for the past six months, or, in other words, since his return to New York City. Our relations were or a--er--a somewhat Secret nature, I may say. He made the somewhat Extraordinary demand upon us, at the time we were Retained, that we should conduct his affairs with the Utmost secrecy. Especially, ser, were we required to Keep you in the dark as to the real--"

"Just a moment, sir," interrupted Mr. Bingle, sitting up very straight, and staring. "May I ask one questions? Are you sure you haven't got my Uncle Joe confused with another Joseph Hooper? To my certain knowledge, he had no transactions with lawyers while staying at my house. You've got the wrong man, sir, I--" "I've got the right man, Mr. Bingle," said the lawyer, with a smile. "Your uncle was a strange man. Have you never heard of Joseph H. Grimwell?"

"Certainly. Every one has heard of him."

"Well, your uncle was Joseph H. Grimwell, the millionaire mine-owner and lumber king. For fifteen years the name of Joseph Grimwell took the place of--I beg your pardon! I did not mean to put it so abruptly, sir. Calm yourself! I--"

"All right," said Mr. Bingle, suddenly collapsing into the chair after struggling to his feet, his eyes bulging. "All right. I'm--I'm calm. Go on with the story. You can't expect me to believe it, however. How on earth could poor old Uncle Joe Hooper, who was actually starving when he came to me last--"

"That is the best part of the story, Mr. Bingle," said Sigsbee, settling back in his chair and linking his plump hands benevolently across his expansive and somewhat overhanging waistcoat. "That is the best part of the story, sir." _

Read next: Chapter 5. The Story Of Joseph

Read previous: Chapter 3. The Death Of Uncle Joe

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