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