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Page 50
Mike found himself, by degrees, growing quite attached to the New
Asiatic Bank.
One morning, early in February, he noticed a curious change in Mr
Waller. The head of the Cash Department was, as a rule, mildly cheerful
on arrival, and apt (excessively, Mike thought, though he always
listened with polite interest) to relate the most recent sayings and
doings of his snub-nosed son, Edward. No action of this young prodigy
was withheld from Mike. He had heard, on different occasions, how he
had won a prize at his school for General Information (which Mike could
well believe); how he had trapped young Mr Richards, now happily
reconciled to Ada, with an ingenious verbal catch; and how he had made
a sequence of diverting puns on the name of the new curate, during the
course of that cleric's first Sunday afternoon visit.
On this particular day, however, the cashier was silent and
absent-minded. He answered Mike's good-morning mechanically, and
sitting down at his desk, stared blankly across the building. There
was a curiously grey, tired look on his face.
Mike could not make it out. He did not like to ask if there was
anything the matter. Mr Waller's face had the unreasonable effect on
him of making him feel shy and awkward. Anything in the nature of
sorrow always dried Mike up and robbed him of the power of speech.
Being naturally sympathetic, he had raged inwardly in many a crisis at
this devil of dumb awkwardness which possessed him and prevented him
from putting his sympathy into words. He had always envied the cooing
readiness of the hero on the stage when anyone was in trouble. He
wondered whether he would ever acquire that knack of pouring out a
limpid stream of soothing words on such occasions. At present he could
get no farther than a scowl and an almost offensive gruffness.
The happy thought struck him of consulting Psmith. It was his hour for
pottering, so he pottered round to the Postage Department, where he
found the old Etonian eyeing with disfavour a new satin tie which
Bristow was wearing that morning for the first time.
'I say, Smith,' he said, 'I want to speak to you for a second.'
Psmith rose. Mike led the way to a quiet corner of the Telegrams
Department.
'I tell you, Comrade Jackson,' said Psmith, 'I am hard pressed. The
fight is beginning to be too much for me. After a grim struggle, after
days of unremitting toil, I succeeded yesterday in inducing the man
Bristow to abandon that rainbow waistcoat of his. Today I enter the
building, blythe and buoyant, worn, of course, from the long struggle,
but seeing with aching eyes the dawn of another, better era, and there
is Comrade Bristow in a satin tie. It's hard, Comrade Jackson, it's
hard, I tell you.'
'Look here, Smith,' said Mike, 'I wish you'd go round to the Cash and
find out what's up with old Waller. He's got the hump about something.
He's sitting there looking absolutely fed up with things. I hope
there's nothing up. He's not a bad sort. It would be rot if anything
rotten's happened.'
Psmith began to display a gentle interest.
'So other people have troubles as well as myself,' he murmured
musingly. 'I had almost forgotten that. Comrade Waller's misfortunes
cannot but be trivial compared with mine, but possibly it will be as
well to ascertain their nature. I will reel round and make inquiries.'
'Good man,' said Mike. 'I'll wait here.'
Psmith departed, and returned, ten minutes later, looking more serious
than when he had left.
'His kid's ill, poor chap,' he said briefly. 'Pretty badly too, from
what I can gather. Pneumonia. Waller was up all night. He oughtn't to
be here at all today. He doesn't know what he's doing half the time.
He's absolutely fagged out. Look here, you'd better nip back and do as
much of the work as you can. I shouldn't talk to him much if I were
you. Buck along.'
Mike went. Mr Waller was still sitting staring out across the aisle.
There was something more than a little gruesome in the sight of him. He
wore a crushed, beaten look, as if all the life and fight had gone out
of him. A customer came to the desk to cash a cheque. The cashier
shovelled the money to him under the bars with the air of one whose
mind is elsewhere. Mike could guess what he was feeling, and what he
was thinking about. The fact that the snub-nosed Edward was, without
exception, the most repulsive small boy he had ever met in this world,
where repulsive small boys crowd and jostle one another, did not
interfere with his appreciation of the cashier's state of mind. Mike's
was essentially a sympathetic character. He had the gift of intuitive
understanding, where people of whom he was fond were concerned. It was
this which drew to him those who had intelligence enough to see beyond
his sometimes rather forbidding manner, and to realize that his blunt
speech was largely due to shyness. In spite of his prejudice against
Edward, he could put himself into Mr Waller's place, and see the thing
from his point of view.
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