There is a cold impersonality about a bank. A school is a living thing.

Setting aside this important difference, there was a good deal of the
public school about the New Asiatic Bank. The heads of departments were
not quite so autocratic as masters, and one was treated more on a
grown-up scale, as man to man; but, nevertheless, there remained a
distinct flavour of a school republic. Most of the men in the bank,
with the exception of certain hard-headed Scotch youths drafted in from
other establishments in the City, were old public school men. Mike
found two Old Wrykinians in the first week. Neither was well known to
him. They had left in his second year in the team. But it was pleasant
to have them about, and to feel that they had been educated at the
right place.

As far as Mike's personal comfort went, the presence of these two
Wrykinians was very much for the good. Both of them knew all about his
cricket, and they spread the news. The New Asiatic Bank, like most
London banks, was keen on sport, and happened to possess a cricket team
which could make a good game with most of the second-rank clubs. The
disappearance to the East of two of the best bats of the previous
season caused Mike's advent to be hailed with a good deal of
enthusiasm. Mike was a county man. He had only played once for his
county, it was true, but that did not matter. He had passed the barrier
which separates the second-class bat from the first-class, and the bank
welcomed him with awe. County men did not come their way every day.

Mike did not like being in the bank, considered in the light of a
career. But he bore no grudge against the inmates of the bank, such as
he had borne against the inmates of Sedleigh. He had looked on the
latter as bound up with the school, and, consequently, enemies. His