I.

For a long time blithe and fragile Miss Eunice, demure, correct in
deportment, and yet not wholly without enthusiasm, thought that day the
unluckiest in her life on which she first took into her hands that
unobtrusive yet dramatic book, “Miss Crofutt’s Missionary Labors in the
English Prisons.”

It came to her notice by mere accident, not by favor of proselyting
friends; and such was its singular material, that she at once devoured
it with avidity. As its title suggests, it was the history of the
ameliorating endeavors of a woman in criminal society, and it contained,
perforce, a large amount of tragic and pathetic incident. But this last
was so blended and involved with what Miss Eunice would have skipped as
commonplace, that she was led to digest the whole volume–statistics,
philosophy, comments, and all. She studied the analysis of the
atmosphere of cells, the properties and waste of wheaten flour, the cost
of clothing to the general government, the whys and wherefores of crime
and evil-doing; and it was not long before there was generated within
her bosom a fine and healthy ardor to emulate this practical and
courageous pattern.

She was profoundly moved by the tales of missionary labors proper. She
was filled with joy to read that Miss Crofutt and her lieutenants
sometimes cracked and broke away the formidable husks which enveloped
divine kernels in the hearts of some of the wretches, and she frequently
wept at the stories of victories gained over monsters whose defences of
silence and stolidity had suddenly fallen into ruin above the slow but
persistent sapping of constant kindness. Acute tinglings and chilling
thrills would pervade her entire body when she read that on Christmas
every wretch seemed to become for that day, at least, a gracious man;
that the sight of a few penny tapers, or the possession of a handful of
sweet stuff, or a spray of holly, or a hot-house bloom, would appear to
convert the worst of them into children. Her heart would swell to learn
how they acted during the one poor hour of yearly freedom in the
prison-yards; that they swelled their chests; that they ran; that they
took long strides; that the singers anxiously tried their voices, now
grown husky; that the athletes wrestled only to find their limbs stiff
and their arts forgotten; that the gentlest of them lifted their faces
to the broad sky and spent the sixty minutes in a dreadful gazing at the
clouds.

The pretty student gradually became possessed with a rage. She desired
to convert some one, to recover some estray, to reform some wretch.

She regretted that she lived in America, and not in England, where the
most perfect rascals were to be found; she was sorry that the gloomy,
sin-saturated prisons which were the scenes of Miss Crofutt’s labors
must always be beyond her ken.

There was no crime in the family or the neighborhood against which she
might strive; no one whom she knew was even austere; she had never met a
brute; all her rascals were newspaper rascals. For aught she knew, this
tranquillity and good-will might go on forever, without affording her an
opportunity. She must be denied the smallest contact with these
frightful faces and figures, these bars and cages, these deformities of
the mind and heart, these curiosities of conscience, shyness, skill, and
daring; all these dramas of reclamation, all these scenes of fervent
gratitude, thankfulness, and intoxicating liberty–all or any of these
things must never come to be the lot of her eyes; and she gave herself
up to the most poignant regret.

But one day she was astonished to discover that all of these delights
lay within half an hour’s journey of her home; and moreover, that there
was approaching an hour which was annually set apart for the indulgence
of the inmates of the prison in question. She did not stop to ask
herself, as she might well have done, how it was that she had so
completely ignored this particular institution, which was one of the
largest and best conducted in the country, especially when her desire to
visit one was so keen; but she straightway set about preparing for her
intended visit in a manner which she fancied Miss Crofutt would have
approved, had she been present.

She resolved, in the most radical sense of the word, to be alive. She
jotted on some ivory tablets, with a gold pencil, a number of hints to
assist her in her observations. For example: “Phrenological development;
size of cells; ounces of solid and liquid; tissue-producing food; were
mirrors allowed? if so, what was the effect? jimmy and skeleton-key,
character of; canary birds: query, would not their admission into every
cell animate in the human prisoners a similar buoyancy? to urge upon the
turnkeys the use of the Spanish garrote in place of the present
distressing gallows; to find the proportion of Orthodox and Unitarian
prisoners to those of other persuasions.” But beside these and fifty
other similar memoranda, the enthusiast cast about her for something
practical to do.

She hit upon the capital idea of flowers. She at once ordered from a
gardener of taste two hundred bouquets, or rather nosegays, which she
intended for distribution among the prisoners she was about to visit,
and she called upon her father for the money.

Then she began to prepare her mind. She wished to define the plan from
which she was to make her contemplations. She settled that she would be
grave and gentle. She would be exquisitely careful not to hold herself
too much aloof, and yet not to step beyond the bounds of that sweet
reserve that she conceived must have been at once Miss Crofutt’s sword
and buckler.

Her object was to awaken in the most abandoned criminals a realization
that the world, in its most benignant phase, was still open to them;
that society, having obtained a requital for their wickedness, was ready
to embrace them again on proof of their repentance.

She determined to select at the outset two or three of the most
remarkable monsters, and turn the full head of her persuasions
exclusively upon them, instead of sprinkling (as it were) the whole
community with her grace. She would arouse at first a very few, and then
a few more, and a few more, and so on ad infinitum.

It was on a hot July morning that she journeyed on foot over the bridge
which led to the prison, and there walked a man behind her carrying the
flowers.

Her eyes were cast down, this being the position most significant of her
spirit. Her pace was equal, firm, and rapid: she made herself oblivious
of the bustle of the streets, and she repented that her vanity had
permitted her to wear white and lavender these making a combination in
her dress which she had been told became her well. She had no right to
embellish herself. Was she going to the races or a match, or a
kettle-drum, that she must dandify herself with particular shades of
color? She stopped short, blushing. Would Miss Cro—-. But there was no
help for it now. It was too late to turn back. She proceeded, feeling
that the odds were against her.

She approached her destination in such a way that the prison came into
view suddenly. She paused, with a feeling of terror. The enormous gray
building rose far above a lofty white wall of stone, and a sense of its
prodigious strength and awful gloom overwhelmed her. On the top of the
wall, holding by an iron railing, there stood a man with a rifle
trailing behind him. He was looking down into the yard inside. His
attitude of watchfulness, his weapon, the unseen thing that was being
thus fiercely guarded, provoked in her such a revulsion that she came to
a standstill.

What in the name of mercy had she come here for? She began to tremble.
The man with the flowers came up to her and halted. From the prison
there came at this instant the loud clang of a bell, and succeeding this
a prolonged and resonant murmur which seemed to increase. Miss Eunice
looked hastily around her. There were several people who must have heard
the same sounds that reached her ears, but they were not alarmed. In
fact, one or two of them seemed to be going to the prison direct. The
courage of our philanthropist began to revive. A woman in a brick house
opposite suddenly pulled up a window-curtain and fixed an amused and
inquisitive look upon her.

This would have sent her into a thrice-heated furnace. “Come, if you
please,” she commanded the man, and she marched upon the jail.

She entered at first a series of neat offices in a wing of the
structure, and then she came to a small door made of black bars of iron.
A man stood on the farther side of this, with a bunch of large keys.
When he saw Miss Eunice he unlocked and opened the door, and she passed
through.

She found that she had entered a vast, cool, and lofty cage, one hundred
feet in diameter; it had an iron floor, and there were several people
strolling about here and there. Through several grated apertures the
sunlight streamed with strong effect, and a soft breeze swept around the
cavernous apartment.

Without the cage, before her and on either hand, were three more wings
of the building, and in these were the prisoners’ corridors.

At the moment she entered, the men were leaving their cells, and
mounting the stone stairs in regular order, on their way to the chapel
above. The noisy files went up and down and to the right and to the
left, shuffling and scraping and making a great tumult. The men were
dressed in blue, and were seen indistinctly through the lofty gratings.
From above and below and all around her there came the metallic snapping
of bolts and the rattle of moving bars; and so significant was
everything of savage repression and impending violence, that Miss Eunice
was compelled to say faintly to herself “I am afraid it will take a
little time to get used to all this.”

She rested upon one of the seats in the rotunda while the chapel
services were being conducted, and she thus had an opportunity to regain
a portion of her lost heart. She felt wonderfully dwarfed and belittled,
and her plan of recovering souls had, in some way or other, lost much of
its feasibility. A glance at her bright flowers revived her a little, as
did also a surprising, long-drawn roar from over her head, to the tune
of “America.” The prisoners were singing.

Miss Eunice was not alone in her intended work, for there were several
other ladies, also with supplies of flowers, who with her awaited until
the prisoners should descend into the yard and be let loose before
presenting them with what they had brought. Their common purpose made
them acquainted, and by the aid of chat and sympathy they fortified each
other.

Half an hour later the five hundred men descended from the chapel to the
yard, rushing out upon its bare broad surface as you have seen a burst
of water suddenly irrigate a road-bed. A hoarse and tremendous shout at
once filled the air, and echoed against the walls like the threat of a
volcano. Some of the wretches waltzed and spun around like dervishes,
some threw somersaults, some folded their arms gravely and marched up
and down, some fraternized, some walked away pondering, some took off
their tall caps and sat down in the shade, some looked toward the
rotunda with expectation, and there were those who looked toward it with
contempt.

There led from the rotunda to the yard a flight of steps. Miss Eunice
descended these steps with a quaking heart, and a turnkey shouted to the
prisoners over her head that she and others had flowers for them.

No sooner had the words left his lips, than the men rushed up pell-mell.

This was a crucial moment.

There thronged upon Miss Eunice an army of men who were being punished
for all the crimes in the calendar. Each individual here had been caged
because he was either a highwayman, or a forger, or a burglar, or a
ruffian, or a thief, or a murderer. The unclean and frightful tide bore
down upon our terrified missionary, shrieking and whooping. Every
prisoner thrust out his hand over the head of the one in front of him,
and the foremost plucked at her dress.

She had need of courage. A sense of danger and contamination impelled
her to fly, but a gleam of reason in the midst of her distraction
enabled her to stand her ground. She forced herself to smile though she
knew her face had grown pale.

She placed a bunch of flowers into an immense hand which projected from
a coarse blue sleeve in front of her; the owner of the hand was pushed
away so quickly by those who came after him that Miss Eunice failed to
see his face. Her tortured ear caught a rough “Thank y’, miss!” The
spirit of Miss Crofutt revived in a flash, and her disciple thereafter
possessed no lack of nerve.

She plied the crowd with flowers as long as they lasted, and a jaunty
self possession enabled her finally to gaze without flinching at the
mass of depraved and wicked faces with which she was surrounded. Instead
of retaining her position upon the steps, she gradually descended into
the yard, as did several other visitors. She began to feel at home; she
found her tongue, and her color came back again. She felt a warm pride
in noticing with what care and respect the prisoners treated her gifts;
they carried them about with great tenderness, and some compared them
with those of their friends.

Presently she began to recall her plans. It occurred to her to select
her two or three villains. For one, she immediately pitched upon a
lean-faced wretch in front of her. He seemed to be old, for his back was
bent and he leaned upon a cane. His features were large, and they bore
an expression of profound gloom. His head was sunk upon his breast, his
lofty conical cap was pulled over his ears, and his shapeless uniform
seemed to weigh him down, so infirm was he.

Miss Eunice spoke to him. He did not hear; she spoke again. He glanced
at her like a flash, but without moving; this was at once followed by a
scrutinizing look. He raised his head, and then he turned toward her
gravely.

The solemnity of his demeanor nearly threw Miss Eunice off her balance,
but she mastered herself by beginning to talk rapidly. The prisoner
leaned over a little to hear better. Another came up, and two or three
turned around to look. She bethought herself of an incident related in
Miss Crofutt’s book, and she essayed its recital. It concerned a lawyer
who was once pleading in a French criminal court in behalf of a man
whose crime had been committed under the influence of dire want. In his
plea he described the case of another whom he knew who had been punished
with a just but short imprisonment instead of a long one, which the
judge had been at liberty to impose, but from which he humanely
refrained. Miss Eunice happily remembered the words of the lawyer: “That
man suffered like the wrong-doer that he was. He knew his punishment was
just. Therefore there lived perpetually in his breast an impulse toward
a better life which was not suppressed and stifled by the five years he
passed within the walls of the jail. He came forth and began to labor.
He toiled hard. He struggled against averted faces and cold words, and
he began to rise. He secreted nothing, faltered at nothing, and never
stumbled. He succeeded; men took off their hats to him once more; he
became wealthy, honorable, God-fearing. I, gentlemen, am that man, that
criminal.” As she quoted this last declaration Miss Eunice erected
herself with burning eyes and touched herself proudly upon the breast. A
flush crept into her cheeks, and her nostrils dilated, and she grew
tall.

She came back to earth again, and found herself surrounded with the
prisoners. She was a little startled.

“Ah, that was good!” ejaculated the old man upon whom she had fixed her
eyes. Miss Eunice felt an inexpressible sense of delight.

Murmurs of approbation came from all of her listeners, especially from
one on her right hand. She looked around at him pleasantly.

But the smile faded from her lips on beholding him. He was extremely
tall and very powerful. He overshadowed her. His face was large, ugly,
and forbidding; his gray hair and beard were cropped close, his eyebrows
met at the bridge of his nose and overhung his large eyes like a screen.
His lips were very wide, and, being turned downward at the corners, they
gave him a dolorous expression. His lower jaw was square and protruding,
and a pair of prodigious white ears projected from beneath his
sugar-loaf cap. He seemed to take his cue from the old man, for he
repeated his sentiment.

“Yes,” said he, with a voice which broke alternately into a roar and a
whisper, “that was a good story.”

“Y-yes,” faltered Miss Eunice, “and it has the merit of being t-rue.”

He replied with a nod, and looked absently over her head while he rubbed
the nap upon his chin with his hand. Miss Eunice discovered that his
knee touched the skirt of her dress, and she was about to move in order
to destroy this contact, when she remembered that Miss Crofutt would
probably have cherished the accident as a promoter of a valuable
personal influence, so she allowed it to remain. The lean-faced man was
not to be mentioned in the same breath with this one, therefore she
adopted the superior villain out of hand.

She began to approach him. She asked him where he lived, meaning to
discover whence he had come. He replied in the same mixture of roar and
whisper, “Six undered un one, North Wing.”

Miss Eunice grew scarlet. Presently she recovered sufficiently to pursue
some inquiries respecting the rules and customs of the prison. She did
not feel that she was interesting her friend, yet it seemed clear that
he did not wish to go away. His answers were curt, yet he swept his cap
off his head, implying by the act a certain reverence, which Miss
Eunice’s vanity permitted her to exult at. Therefore she became more
loquacious than ever. Some men came up to speak with the prisoner, but
he shook them off, and remained in an attitude of strict attention,
with his chin on his hand, looking now at the sky, now at the ground and
now at Miss Eunice.

In handling the flowers her gloves had been stained, and she now held
them in her fingers nervously twisting them as she talked. In the course
of time she grew short of subjects, and as her listener suggested
nothing, several lapses occurred; in one of them she absently spread her
gloves out in her palms, meanwhile wondering how the English girl acted
under similar circumstances.

Suddenly a large hand slowly interposed itself between her eyes and her
gloves, and then withdrew, taking one of the soiled trifles with it.

She was surprised, but the surprise was pleasurable. She said nothing at
first. The prisoner gravely spread his prize out upon his own palm, and
after looking at it carefully, he rolled it up into a tight ball and
thrust it deep in an inner pocket.

This act made the philanthropist aware that she had made progress. She
rose insensibly to the elevation of patron, and she made promises to
come frequently and visit her ward and to look in upon him when he was
at work; while saying this she withdrew a little from the shade his huge
figure had supplied her with.

He thrust his hands into his pockets, but he hastily took them out
again. Still he said nothing and hung his head. It was while she was in
the mood of a conqueror that Miss Eunice went away. She felt a touch of
repugnance at stepping from before his eyes a free woman, therefore she
took pains to go when she thought he was not looking.

She pointed him out to a turnkey, who told her he was expiating the sins
of assault and burglarious entry. Outwardly Miss Eunice looked grieved,
but within she exulted that he was so emphatically a rascal.

When she emerged from the cool, shadowy, and frowning prison into the
gay sunlight, she experienced a sense of bewilderment. The significance
of a lock and a bar seemed greater on quitting them than it had when she
had perceived them first. The drama of imprisonment and punishment
oppressed her spirit with tenfold gloom now that she gazed upon the
brilliancy and freedom of the outer world. That she and everybody around
her were permitted to walk here and there at will, without question and
limit, generated within her an indefinite feeling of gratitude; and the
noise, the colors, the creaking wagons, the myriad voices, the splendid
variety and change of all things excited a profound but at the same time
a mournful satisfaction.

Midway in her return journey she was shrieked at from a carriage, which
at once approached the sidewalk. Within it were four gay maidens bound
to the Navy-Yard, from whence they were to sail, with a large party of
people of nice assortment, in an experimental steamer, which was to be
made to go with kerosene lamps, in some way. They seized upon her hands
and cajoled her. Wouldn’t she go? They were to sail down among the
islands (provided the oil made the wheels and things go round), they
were to lunch at Fort Warren, dine at Fort Independence, and dance at
Fort Winthrop Come, please go. Oh, do! The Germanians were to furnish
the music.

Miss Eunice sighed, but shook her head. She had not yet got the air of
the prison out of her lungs, nor the figure of her robber out of her
eyes, nor the sense of horror and repulsion out of her sympathies.

At another time she would have gone to the ends of the earth with such a
happy crew, but now she only shook her head again and was resolute. No
one could wring a reason from her, and the wondering quartet drove away.

II.

Before the day went, Miss Eunice awoke to the disagreeable fact that her
plans had become shrunken and contracted, that a certain something had
curdled her spontaneity, and that her ardor had flown out at some
crevice and had left her with the dry husk of an intent.

She exerted herself to glow a little, but she failed. She talked well
at the tea-table, but she did not tell about the glove. This matter
plagued her. She ran over in her mind the various doings of Miss
Crofutt, and she could not conceal from herself that that lady had never
given a glove to one of her wretches; no, nor had she ever permitted the
smallest approach to familiarity.

Miss Eunice wept a little. She was on the eve of despairing.

In the silence of the night the idea presented itself to her with a
disagreeable baldness. There was a thief over yonder that possessed a
confidence with her.

They had found it necessary to shut this man up in iron and stone, and
to guard him with a rifle with a large leaden ball in it.

This villain was a convict. That was a terrible word, one that made her
blood chill.

She, the admired of hundreds and the beloved of a family, had done a
secret and shameful thing of which she dared not tell. In these solemn
hours the madness of her act appalled her.

She asked herself what might not the fellow do with the glove? Surely he
would exhibit it among his brutal companions, and perhaps allow it to
pass to and fro among them. They would laugh and joke with him, and he
would laugh and joke in return, and no doubt he would kiss it to their
great delight. Again, he might go to her friends, and, by working upon
their fears and by threatening an exposure of her, extort large sums of
money from them. Again, might he not harass her by constantly appearing
to her at all times and all places and making all sorts of claims and
demands? Again, might he not, with terrible ingenuity, use it in
connection with some false key or some jack-in-the-box, or some
dark-lantern, or something, in order to effect his escape; or might he
not tell the story times without count to some wretched
curiosity-hunters who would advertise her folly all over the country, to
her perpetual misery?

She became harnessed to this train of thought. She could not escape from
it. She reversed the relation that she had hoped to hold toward such a
man, and she stood in his shadow, and not he in hers.

In consequence of these ever-present fears and sensations, there was one
day, not very far in the future, that she came to have an intolerable
dread of. This day was the one on which the sentence of the man was to
expire. She felt that he would surely search for her; and that he would
find her there could be no manner of doubt, for, in her surplus of
confidence, she had told him her full name, inasmuch as he had told her
his.

When she contemplated this new source of terror, her peace of mind fled
directly. So did her plans for philanthropic labor. Not a shred
remained. The anxiety began to tell upon her, and she took to peering
out of a certain shaded window that commanded the square in front of
her house. It was not long before she remembered that for good behavior
certain days were deducted from the convicts’ terms of imprisonment.
Therefore, her ruffian might be released at a moment not anticipated by
her. He might, in fact, be discharged on any day. He might be on his way
toward her even now.

She was not very far from right, for suddenly the man did appear.

He one day turned the corner, as she was looking out at the window
fearing that she should see him, and came in a diagonal direction across
the hot, flagged square.

Miss Eunice’s pulse leaped into the hundreds. She glued her eyes upon
him. There was no mistake. There was the red face, the evil eyes, the
large mouth, the gray hair, and the massive frame.

What should she do? Should she hide? Should she raise the sash and
shriek to the police? Should she arm herself with a knife? or–what? In
the name of mercy, what? She glared into the street. He came on
steadily, and she lost him, for he passed beneath her. In a moment she
heard the jangle of the bell. She was petrified. She heard his heavy
step below. He had gone into the little reception-room beside the door.
He crossed to a sofa opposite the mantel. She then heard him get up and
go to a window, then he walked about, and then sat down; probably upon a
red leather seat beside the window.

Meanwhile the servant was coming to announce him. From some impulse,
which was a strange and sudden one, she eluded the maid, and rushed
headlong upon her danger. She never remembered her descent of the
stairs. She awoke to cool contemplation of matters only to find herself
entering the room.

Had she made a mistake, after all? It was a question that was asked and
answered in a flash. This man was pretty erect and self-assured, but she
discerned in an instant that there was needed but the blue woollen
jacket and the tall cap to make him the wretch of a month before.

He said nothing. Neither did she. He stood up and occupied himself by
twisting a button upon his waistcoat. She, fearing a threat or a demand,
stood bridling to receive it. She looked at him from top to toe with
parted lips.

He glanced at her. She stepped back. He put the rim of his cap in his
mouth and bit it once or twice, and then looked out at the window. Still
neither spoke. A voice at this instant seemed impossible.

He glanced again like a flash. She shrank, and put her hands upon the
bolt. Presently he began to stir. He put out one foot, and gradually
moved forward. He made another step. He was going away. He had almost
reached the door, when Miss Eunice articulated, in a confused whisper,
“My–my glove; I wish you would give me my glove.”

He stopped, fixed his eyes upon her, and after passing his fingers up
and down upon the outside of his coat, said, with deliberation, in a
husky voice, “No, mum. I’m goin’ fur to keep it as long as I live, if it
takes two thousand years.”

“Keep it!” she stammered.

“Keep it,” he replied.

He gave her an untranslatable look. It neither frightened her nor
permitted her to demand the glove more emphatically. She felt her cheeks
and temples and her hands grow cold, and midway in the process of
fainting she saw him disappear. He vanished quietly. Deliberation and
respect characterized his movements, and there was not so much as a jar
of the outer door.

Poor philanthropist!

This incident nearly sent her to a sick-bed. She fully expected that her
secret would appear in the newspapers in full, and she lived in dread of
the onslaught of an angry and outraged society.

The more she reflected upon what her possibilities had been and how she
had misused them, the iller and the more distressed she got. She grew
thin and spare of flesh. Her friends became frightened. They began to
dose her and to coddle her. She looked at them with eyes full of supreme
melancholy, and she frequently wept upon their shoulders.

In spite of her precautions, however, a thunder-bolt slipped in.

One day her father read at the table an item that met his eye. He
repeated it aloud, on account of the peculiar statement in the last
line:

“Detained on suspicion.–A rough-looking fellow, who gave the name of
Gorman, was arrested on the high-road to Tuxbridge Springs for suspected
complicity in some recent robberies in the neighborhood. He was
fortunately able to give a pretty clear account of his late whereabouts
and he was permitted to depart with a caution from the justice. Nothing
was found upon him but a few coppers and an old kid glove wrapped in a
bit of paper.”

Miss Eunice’s soup spilled. This was too much, and she fainted this time
in right good earnest; and she straightway became an invalid of the
settled type. They put her to bed. The doctor told her plainly that he
knew she had a secret, but she looked at him so imploringly that he
refrained from telling his fancies; but he ordered an immediate change
of air. It was settled at once that she should go to the “Springs”–to
Tuxbridge Springs. The doctor knew there were young people there, also
plenty of dancing. So she journeyed thither with her pa and her ma and
with pillows and servants.

They were shown to their rooms, and strong porters followed with the
luggage. One of them had her huge trunk upon his shoulder. He put it
carefully upon the floor, and by so doing he disclosed the ex-prisoner
to Miss Eunice and Miss Eunice to himself. He was astonished, but he
remained silent. But she must needs be frightened and fall into another
fit of trembling. After an awkward moment he went away, while she called
to her father and begged piteously to be taken away from Tuxbridge
Springs instantly. There was no appeal. She hated, hated, HATED
Tuxbridge Springs, and she should die if she were forced to remain. She
rained tears. She would give no reason, but she could not stay. No,
millions on millions could not persuade her; go she must. There was no
alternative. The party quitted the place within the hour, bag and
baggage. Miss Eunice’s father was perplexed and angry, and her mother
would have been angry also if she had dared.

They went to other springs and stayed a month, but the patient’s fright
increased each day, and so did her fever. She was full of distractions.
In her dreams everybody laughed at her as the one who had flirted with a
convict. She would ever be pursued with the tale of her foolishness and
stupidity. Should he ever recover her self-respect and confidence?

She had become radically selfish. She forgot the old ideas of
noble-heartedness and self-denial, and her temper had become weak and
childish. She did not meet her puzzle face to face, but she ran away
from it with her hands over her ears. Miss Crofutt stared at her, and
therefore she threw Miss Crofutt’s book into the fire.

After two days of unceasing debate, she called her parents, and with
the greatest agitation told them all.

It so happened, in this case, that events, to use a railroad phrase,
made connection.

No sooner had Miss Eunice told her story than the man came again. This
time he was accompanied by a woman.

“Only get my glove away from him,” sobbed the unhappy one, “that is all
I ask!” This was a fine admission! It was thought proper to bring an
officer, and so a strong one was sent for.

Meanwhile the couple had been admitted to the parlor. Miss Eunice’s
father stationed the officer at one door, while he, with a pistol, stood
at the other. Then Miss Eunice went into the apartment. She was wasted,
weak, and nervous. The two villains got up as she came in, and bowed.
She began to tremble as usual, and laid hold upon the mantelpiece. “How
much do you want?” she gasped.

The man gave the woman a push with his forefinger. She stepped forward
quickly with her crest up. Her eyes turned, and she fixed a vixenish
look upon Miss Eunice. She suddenly shot her hand out from beneath her
shawl and extended it at full length. Across it lay Miss Eunice’s glove,
very much soiled.

“Was that thing ever yours?” demanded the woman, shrilly.

“Y-yes,” said Miss Eunice, faintly.

The woman seemed (if the apt word is to be excused) staggered. She
withdrew her hand, and looked the glove over. The man shook his head,
and began to laugh behind his hat.

“And did you ever give it to him?” pursued the woman, pointing over her
shoulder with her thumb.

Miss Eunice nodded.

“Of your own free will?”

After a moment of silence she ejaculated, in a whisper, “Yes.”

“Now wait,” said the man, coming to the front; “‘nough has been said by
you.” He then addressed himself to Miss Eunice with the remains of his
laugh still illuminating his face.

“This is my wife’s sister, and she’s one of the jealous kind. I love my
wife” (here he became grave), “and I never showed her any kind of slight
that I know of. I’ve always been fair to her, and she’s always been fair
to me. Plain sailin’ so far; I never kep’ anything from her–but this.”
He reached out and took the glove from the woman, and spread it out upon
his own palm, as Miss Eunice had seen him do once before. He looked at
it thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t tell her about this; no, never. She was
never very particular to ask me; that’s where her trust in me came in.
She knowed I was above doing anything out of the way–that is–I mean–”
He stammered and blushed, and then rushed on volubly. “But her sister
here thought I paid too much attention to it; she thought I looked at it
too much, and kep’ it secret. So she nagged and nagged, and kept the
pitch boilin’ until I had to let it out: I told ‘em” (Miss Eunice
shivered). “‘No,’ says she, my wife’s sister, ‘that won’t do, Gorman.
That’s chaff, and I’m too old a bird.’ Ther’fore I fetched her straight
to you, so she could put the question direct.”

He stopped a moment as if in doubt how to go on. Miss Eunice began to
open her eyes, and she released the mantel. The man resumed with
something like impressiveness:

“When you last held that,” said he, slowly, balancing the glove in his
hand, “I was a wicked man with bad intentions through and through. When
I first held it I became an honest man, with good intentions.”

A burning blush of shame covered Miss Eunice’s face and neck.

“An’ as I kep’ it my intentions went on improvin’ and improvin’, till I
made up my mind to behave myself in future, forever. Do you
understand?–forever. No backslidin’, no hitchin’, no slippin’-up. I
take occasion to say, miss, that I was beset time and again; that the
instant I set my foot outside them prison-gates, over there, my old
chums got round me; but I shook my head. ‘No,’ says I, ‘I won’t go back
on the glove.’”

Miss Eunice hung her head. The two had exchanged places, she thought;
she was the criminal and he the judge.

“An’ what is more,” continued he, with the same weight in his tone, “I
not only kep’ sight of the glove, but I kep’ sight of the generous
sperrit that gave it. I didn’t let that go. I never forgot what you
meant. I knowed–I knowed,” repeated he, lifting his forefinger–”I
knowed a time would come when there wouldn’t be any enthoosiasm, any
‘hurrah,’ and then perhaps you’d be sorry you was so kind to me; an’ the
time did come.”

Miss Eunice buried her face in her hands and wept aloud.

“But did I quit the glove? No, mum. I held on to it. It was what I
fought by. I wasn’t going to give it up, because it was asked for. All
the police-officers in the city couldn’t have took it from me. I put it
deep into my pocket, and I walked out. It was differcult, miss. But I
come through. The glove did it. It helped me stand out against
temptation when it was strong. If I looked at it, I remembered that once
there was a pure heart that pitied me. It cheered me up. After a while I
kinder got out of the mud. Then I got work. The glove again. Then a girl
that knowed me before I took to bad ways married me, and no questions
asked. Then I just took the glove into a dark corner and blessed it.”

Miss Eunice was belittled.

A noise was heard in the hallway. Miss Eunice’s father and the policeman
were going away.

The awkwardness of the succeeding silence was relieved by the moving of
the man and the woman They had done their errand, and were going.

Said Miss Eunice, with the faint idea of making a practical apology to
her visitor, “I shall go to the prison once a week after this, I think.”

“Then may God bless ye, miss,” said the man. He came back with tears in
his eyes and took her proffered hand for an instant. Then he and his
wife’s sister went away.

Miss Eunice’s remaining spark of charity at once crackled and burst into
a flame. There is sure to be a little something that is bad in
everybody’s philanthropy when it is first put to use; it requires to be
filed down like a faulty casting before it will run without danger to
anybody. Samaritanism that goes off with half a charge is sure to do
great mischief somewhere; but Miss Eunice’s, now properly corrected,
henceforth shot off at the proper end, and inevitably hit the mark. She
purchased a new Crofutt.

I.

In an elegant and lofty bank-parlor there sat in council, on an autumn
morning, fourteen millionaires. They reposed in deep arm-chairs, and
their venerable faces were filled with profound gravity. Before them,
upon a broad mahogany table, were piles of books, sheaves of paper in
rubber bands, bundles of quill pens, quires of waste paper for
calculations, and a number of huge red-covered folios, containing the
tell-tale reports of the mercantile agencies. They had just completed
the selections from the list of applicants for discount, and were now in
that state of lethargy that commonly follows a great and important act.

The president, with his hands pressed together before him, was looking
at the fresco of Commerce upon the ceiling; his ponderous right-hand
neighbor was stumbling feebly over an addition that one of the
bookkeepers had made upon one of the papers–he hoped to find it wrong;
his left-hand neighbor was doubling his under-lip with his stout
fingers; an octogenarian beyond had buried his chin in his immense neck,
and was going to sleep; another was stupidly blinking at the nearest
coal-fire; two more were exchanging gasping whispers; another was wiping
his gold spectacles with a white handkerchief, now and then stopping to
hold them unsteadily up to the light; and another was fingering the
polished lapel of his old black coat, and saying, with asthmatic
hoarseness to all who would look at him, “F-o-u-r-teen years!
f-o-u-r-teen years!”

A tall regulator-clock, with its mercury pendulum, ticked upon the wall;
the noise of the heavy rumbling in the streets was softened into a low
monotone, and now and then a bit of coal rattled upon the fender.

The oil-portraits of four former presidents looked thoughtfully down on
the scene of their former labors; the polished wainscots reflected
ragged pictures of the silent fourteen, and all was perfectly in order
and perfectly secure.

Presently, however, there was an end to the stagnation; the white heads
began to move and to look around.

The president’s eyes came gradually down from the Commerce, and, after
travelling over the countenances of his stirring confreres, they
settled by accident upon the table before him. There they encountered a
white envelope, inscribed “to the President and Honorable Board of
Directors–Present.”

“Oh gentlemen! gentlemen!” cried the president, seizing the letter, “one
moment more, I beg of you. Here’s a–a–note–a communication–a–I
don’t know what it is myself, I’m sure, but”–the thirteen sank back
again, feeling somewhat touched that they should be so restrained. The
president ran his eye over the missive. He smiled as one does sometimes
at the precocity of an infant. “The letter, gentlemen,” said he,
slipping the paper through his fingers, “is from the paying teller. It
is a request for”–here the president delayed as if about making a
humorous point–”for a larger salary.” Then he dropped his eyes and
lowered his head, as he might have done had he confessed that somebody
had kissed him. He seemed to be the innocent mouthpiece of a piece of
flagrant nonsense.

There was a moment’s silence. Then a heavy-voiced gentleman took up a
pen and said:

“Is this man’s name Dreyfus–or–or what is it?”

“Let me think,” returned the president, returning once more to the
Commerce; “Dreyfus?–no–not Dreyfus–yes–no. Paying teller–hum–it’s
curious I can’t recall–it commences with an F–FIELDS–yes, Fields!
that’s his name–Fields, to be sure!”

The questioner at once wrote down the word on the paper.

“This is the second time that he has applied for this favor, is it not?”
formally inquired another of the thirteen, in the tone that a judge uses
when he asks the clerk, “Has he not been before me on a former
occasion?”

“Yes,” replied the president, “this is a renewal of an effort made six
months ago.”

There was a general movement. Several chairs rolled back, and their
occupants exchanged querulous glances.

“Suppose we hear the letter read,” suggested a fair soul. “Perhaps”–a
septuagenarian, with snowy hair and a thin body, clad in the clerical
guise of the old school, and who had made a fortune by inventing a
hat-block, arose hastily to his feet, and said:

“I cannot stay to listen to a dun!”

A chorus from the majority echoed the exclamation. All but four
staggered to their feet, and tottered off in various directions; some to
pretend to look out at the window, and some to the wardrobes, where was
deposited their outer clothing.

“Clarks,” stammered the feeble hatter, feeling vainly for the arm-holes
in his great-coat–”clarks presume on their value. Turn ‘em out, say I.
Give ‘em a chance to rotate. You’ve got my opinion, Mr. President.
Refuse what’s-his-name, Fields. Tell him he’s happy and well off now,
without knowing it. Where can be the sleeves to–to this”–his
voice expired in his perplexity.

Fields’s cause looked blue. One director after another groped to the
door, saying, as he went, “I can’t encourage it, Mr. President–tell him
‘No,’ Mr. President–it would only make the rest uneasy if we allowed
it–plenty more to fill his place.”

The hatter’s voice stopped further mention of the subject. He stood at
one end of the apartment in a paroxysm of laughter. Tears filled his
eyes. He pointed to another director, who, at the other extremity of the
room, was also puzzling over a coat. “There’s Stuart with my mackintosh!
He’s trying to put it on–and here am I with his coat trying to put
that on. I–I said to myself, ‘This is pretty large for a slim man
like you.’–Great God, Stuart, if I hadn’t been quick-sighted we might
have stayed here all night!” He immediately fell into another fit of
laughter, and so did his friend. They exchanged coats with great
hilarity, and those who had gone out of the door lumbered back to learn
the cause of it. The story went round from one to the other, “Why,
Stuart had Jacobs’s coat, and Jacobs had Stuart’s coat!” Everybody went
into convulsions, and the president drew out his pocket-handkerchief and
shrieked into it.

The board broke up with great good feeling, and Jacobs went away very
weak, saying that he was going to tell the joke against Stuart on the
street–if he lived to get there.

Three gentlemen remained, professedly to hear Fields’s letter read. Two
staid because the room was comfortable, and the other because he wanted
to have a little private conversation with the president afterward.

Therefore the president wiped away the tears that Stuart’s humor had
forced from his eyes, and opened the crumpled letter, and, turning his
back to the light, read it aloud, while the rest listened with looks of
great amusement in their wrinkled faces.

“To the President and Directors of the —- National Bank.

“GENTLEMEN: I most respectfully renew my application for an increase
of my salary to five thousand dollars per annum, it now being four
thousand. I am impelled to do this because I am convinced that I am
not sufficiently recompensed for the labor I perform; and because
other tellers, having the same responsibilities, receive the larger
sum per annum; and, lastly, because I am about to be married.

“I remember that your answer to my first application was a definite
refusal, and I blamed myself for not having presented the case more
clearly to your distinguished notice. Will you permit me to rectify
that fault now, and to state briefly why I feel assured that my
present claim is not an unreasonable one?

“1. While ten years ago we agreed that three thousand dollars was a
fair compensation for the work I was then called upon to perform,
and four years later agreed that four thousand dollars was then fair
pay for my increased tasks, caused by the increase of your business,
is it not just that I should now ask for a still further advance in
view of the fact that your business has doubled since the date of
our last contract?

“It has been necessary for me to acquaint myself with the signatures
and business customs and qualifications of twice the former number
of your customers, and my liability to error has also become greater
in like ratio. But I have committed no errors, which argues that I
have kept up an equal strain of care. This has made demands upon my
brain and my bodily strength, which I think should be requited for.

“2. I, like each of you, will one day reach an age when the body and
mind will no longer be able to provide for themselves. But between
us, should we continue our present relations, there would be this
vital difference: You would have made an accumulation of wealth that
would be sufficient for your wants, while I would be poor in spite
of the fact that I labored with you, and next to yourselves did the
most to protect your interests. In view of my approaching
incompetence (no matter how far off it is), I am working at a
disadvantage. Would it not be right to enable me to protect myself
from this disadvantage?

“3. While you pay me a price for my labor and for my skill as an
expert, do you compensate me for the trials you put upon my
probity? You pay me for what I do, but do you reward me for what I
might, but do not do? Is what I do not do a marketable
quantity? I think that it is. To prove it, inquire of those whose
servants have behaved ill, whether they would not have paid
something to have forestalled their dishonesty.

“There is a bad strain to this paragraph, and I will not dwell upon
it. I only ask you to remember that enormous sums of money pass
through my hands every day, and that the smallest slip of my memory,
or of my care, or of my fidelity, might cause you irreparable loss.
Familiarity with money and operations in money always tend to lessen
the respect for the regard that others hold it in. To resist the
subtle influences of this familiarity involves a certain wear and
tear of those principles which must be kept intact for your sake.

“I beg you to accept what is my evident meaning, even if my method
of setting it forth has not been particularly happy. I have assured
myself that my claim is a valid one, and I await your obliging reply
with anxiety.

“I remain, very respectfully, “Your obedient servant,

“—-FIELDS, Paying Teller.”

At the end the president suddenly lowered his head with a smile, and
looked over the top of his glasses at his audience, clearly meaning,
“There’s a letter for you!”

But two of the gentlemen were fast asleep, nodding gently at one another
across the table, while their hands clasped the arms of their chairs.
The other one was looking up toward the roofs of the buildings opposite,
absorbed in speculation.

The president said, aloud:

“I think, as long as Fields has made such a touse about it, that I’d
better draft a reply, and not give him a verbal an–”

“Draft!” said the speculator, brought to life by the word. “Draft did
you say, sir? What?–On whom?–”

“I said ‘draft a reply’ to–to this,” returned the other, waving the
letter.

“Oh, a reply! Draft one. Draft a reply–a reply to the letter about the
salary. Oh, certainly, by all means.”

“And read it to the directors at the meeting next Friday,” suggested the
president.

The speculator’s eyes turned vacantly upon him, and it was full half a
minute before he comprehended. “Yes, yes, of course, read it to the
directors next Friday. They’ll approve it, you know. That will be
regular, and according to rule. But about Steinmeyer, you know. When a
man like Steinmeyer does such a thing as–but just come to the window a
minute.”

He led the president off by the arm, and that was the last of Fields’s
letter for that day.

       *       *       *       *       *

II.

Fields was truly on the anxious-seat.

As he had said in his letter, he was engaged to be married, and he
wanted to be about the consummation of the contract, for he had already
delayed too long. His affiancee was a sweet girl who lived with her
widowed mother in the country, where they had a fine house, and a fine
demesne attached to it. When the time for the marriage was finally
settled upon, the lady instantly set about remodelling her domicile and
its surroundings, and making it fit for the new spirits that were soon
to inhabit it. She drew upon her accumulation of money that had thriven
long in a private bank, and expended it in laying out new lawns,
planting new trees, building new stables, erecting tasteful graperies
and kiosks. This sum was not very large, and it included not only what
had been saved out of the earnings of the farm, but also what had been
saved out of the income from the widow’s property, which consisted of
twelve thousand dollars in insurance stock.

Fields had thus far expended nearly all of his salary of four thousand
dollars. He was accustomed to use a quarter of it for his own purposes,
and the rest he applied to the comfort of his aged parents, whom he
maintained. Thus it will be seen that Fields’s desire to add to his own
wealth had reason to be.

Just at this time there stepped in the Chicago fire. On the second day
Fields began to be frightened about the twelve thousand dollars in
insurance stock. Telegrams poured into the city by hundreds, and the
tale grew more dismal with each hour.

His fears were realized. The widow’s money was swept away, and a sort of
paralysis fell upon the country-house and all its surroundings. The
carpenters went away from the kiosks, the masons from the face-walls,
the smiths from the graperies, the gardeners from the lawns, and
everything came to a stand-still. The extra farm-hands were discharged,
and much of the work was left unfinished.

What was to be done?

The mother and daughter wept in secret. Their careers had been
interrupted. Desolation was out-of-doors, and desolation was in their
hearts. The earth lay in ragged heaps; beams and timbers leaned half
erect; barns were party-colored with the old paint and the new, and the
shrubbery was bare to the frosts. Joys which had smiled had fled into
the far distance, and now looked surly enough; all pleasures were
unhorsed, and hope was down.

It was under these circumstances that Fields wrote a second time to the
honorable board of directors to ask them to pay him better wages.

Friday came. There was a meeting, and Fields knew that his case must now
be receiving consideration.

At eleven o’clock the directors emerged from their parlor, and passed
by his desk in twos and threes, chatting and telling watery jokes, as
most great men do.

“They look as if they had entirely forgotten me,” said Fields to
himself.

Pretty soon the cashier came and placed a letter upon his counter.

“Ah!” thought the teller, “I was mistaken. I wonder if I can read it
here without changing countenance?”

He could but try it. He tore off the envelope. It went thus:

“Mr.—-Fields, Paying Teller.

“DEAR SIR: The president and directors, to whom you addressed a
request for an increase of salary, must beg to criticise the
arguments advanced in your polite note.

“They do not understand why you should place a new value upon your
honesty because in other people there happens to be sometimes such a
thing as dishonesty. It is a popular notion that honesty among men
is rare, but the idea is a mistaken one. Honesty of the purest kind,
as honesty is usually understood, is very common. They cannot help
feeling, also, that you somewhat overestimate the value of your
work, which to them seems to be only a higher sort of routine,
calling for no intellectual endeavor, and requiring but little more
than an ordinary bookkeeper’s care for its perfect performance. But
for the differences that do exist between your tasks and those of
the bookkeeper you will remember you are already compensated by a
salary a fourth larger.

“Briefly, they consider their bank a piece of money-making
mechanism, of which you are an able and respected part; but they
cannot understand how you could hope to raise their fear of
peculations and villainies when their system of checks and
counter-checks is so perfect. They have never lost a dollar by the
immorality of any of their employes, and they are sure that matters
are so arranged that any such immorality, even of the rankest kind,
could occasion them no inconvenience.

“Nor do they comprehend why your idea that increase of business
justifies a request for an increase of salary may not be met with
the suggestion that your hours of labor are the same as your former
hours, and that all you were able to perform in those hours, to the
best of your capacity, was purchased at the beginning of your
connection with them.

“In regard to the pure question of the sufficiency of your salary,
they hint in the kindest manner that all expenditures are
contractible as well as extensible.

“They hasten to take this opportunity to express to you their
appreciation of your perfect exhibits; and, complimenting you upon
the care with which you have fulfilled the duties of your post, they
remain your obedient servants.”

The teller felt that a more maddening letter could not have been
written. Its civility seemed to him to be disagreeable suavity; its
failure to particularize the points he made to be a disgraceful evasion;
and the liberty it took in generalizing his case to be an enormous
insult.

The very first sentence on honesty put him in the light of a
blackmailer–one that threatened mischief if his demands were not
complied with. The next sentence went to show that he was an egotist,
because he thought his labors required wear and tear of brain. The third
called him a sound cog-wheel. The latter part of the same said that a
villain could do no evil if he wished to, for they (the directors) had
protected themselves against villains. Then it went on to say that the
writers did not understand how anxiety and caution could be involved in
the pursuit of his duties; and then it was thrown out that his marriage
was his seeking–not theirs. Finally, they patted him on the head.

The devil!

Fields passed a sleepless night. He felt that he had been belittled to
the extremest point, and that there was not a foothold left for his
dignity. His soul was incised and chafed, and he lay awake thinking that
degradation of himself and his office could have proceeded no further.

Toward morning he hit upon a plan to establish himself in what he
believed to be the proper light. “It will require nerve,” reflected he,
doubtingly, “and not only nerve in itself, but a certain exact quantity
of it. Too much nerve would destroy me, and too little nerve would do
the same thing. I think, however, that I can manage it. I feel able to
do anything. Even a paying teller will turn if–” etc., etc.

       *       *       *       *       *

III.

On the following Monday there was a special meeting of the directors for
the purpose of examining the books and accounts of the bank. The
bank-controller was expected to call for an exhibit within the coming
week, and it was desirable that the directors should feel assured that
their institution was in the proper order. The call of the controller
was always impending. It might come any day, and it would require an
exhibit of the condition of the bank on any previous day. He was
permitted to make five of these calls during the year, and, inasmuch as
he was at liberty to choose his own days, his check upon the banks was
complete. If he found a bank that had not fulfilled the requirements of
law, he was obliged to take away its charter, and to close it: hence the
examination-meeting in the present case. The accounts of the tellers
were passed upon, the cashier’s books were looked over, as were also
those of the regular bookkeepers. There seemed to be no errors, and the
contents of the safes were proved. There was perfect order in all the
departments. The clerks were complimented. “Now,” said Fields to
himself, “is my opportunity.”

On the next day at ten o’clock the directors again assembled–this time
for their regular labors–to examine the proposals for discount.

The day happened to be cold and stormy. The twenty clerks were busily
and silently at work behind their counters and gratings, and the
fourteen directors were shut tight in their mahogany room. There was but
little passing to and fro from the street, though now and then a
half-frozen messenger came stamping in, and did his errand, with
benumbed fingers, through the little windows. The tempest made business
light.

At eleven o’clock Fields wrote a note and sent it to the directors’
room. The boy who carried it knocked softly, and the president appeared,
took the letter, and then closed the door again.

Then there was a moment of almost total silence; the clerks wrote, the
leaves rattled, and it seemed as if it were an instant before an
expected explosion.

Presently an explosion came. The clerks heard with astonishment a tumult
in the directors’ room–exclamations, hurried questions, the hasty
rolling of chairs on their casters, and then the sound of feet.

The door was hastily drawn open, and those who were near could see that
nearly all the directors were clustered around it, straining their eyes
to look at the paying teller. Most of them were pale and they called,
in one voice, “Come here!” “Come in here at once!” “Fields!” “Mr.
Fields!” “Sir, you are wanted!” “Step this way instantly!” Fields put
down his pen, opened the tall iron gate which separated him from the
counters, and walked rather quickly toward the den of lions. An opening
was made for him in the group, and he passed through the door, and it
was shut once more.

He walked across the room to the fireplace. He took out his
handkerchief, and, seizing a corner between a thumb and forefinger,
slowly shook it open, and then turned around.

“This note, sir! What does it mean?” cried the president, advancing upon
him, waving the paper in his trembling hand.

“Have you read it?” demanded Fields, in a loud voice.

“Yes,” said the president. He was astonished at Fields’s manner. He cast
a glance upon his fellow-directors.

“Then what is the use of asking me what I mean? It is as plain as I can
make it.”

“But it says–but it says,” faltered the venerable gentleman, turning
the paper to the light, “that you have only money enough to last until
twelve o’clock. Your statement yesterday showed a balance to your credit
of three hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars. That will last at
least–”

“But I have not got three hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars. I
have only got twenty-seven thousand dollars!”

“But we counted three hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“Yesterday–yes. But not this morning.”

“Great God!” cried Stuart, thrusting himself forward, “what!–” He fixed
his feeble eyes upon Fields, but could speak no further. His arms fell
down by his sides, and he began to tremble. He did not have sufficient
courage to ask the question. Somebody else did.

“What has become of it?”

“That I shall not tell you!” returned Fields, looking defiantly at one
director after another.

“But is it gone?” cried the chorus. Many of the faces that confronted
Fields had become waxen. The little group was permeated with a tremor.

“Yes, it is gone; I have taken it.”

“You have taken it!” “You have taken it!” “You have taken it!“

The directors, overwhelmed and confounded, retreated from Fields as if
they were in personal danger from him.

“In Heaven’s name, Fields!” exclaimed the president, “speak out! Tell
us! What!–where!–the money! Come, man!”

“You had better lock the door,” said the teller; “some one will be
coming in.”

One of the most feeble and aged of the board turned around and
hastened, as fast as his infirm limbs would permit him, and threw the
bolt with feverish haste, and then ran back again to hear.

“Yes,” said Fields, with deliberation, “I have taken the money. I have
carried it away and hidden it where no one can lay hands upon it but
myself.”

“Then–then, sir, you have stolen it!”

Fields bowed. “I have stolen it.”

“But you have ruined us!”

“Possibly.”

“And you have ruined yourself!”

“I am not so sure of that.”

“Stop this useless talk!” cried a gentleman, who had heretofore been
silent. He bent upon Fields a look of great dignity. “Make it clear,
sir, what you have done.”

“Certainly. When I left the bank last night I put into my pockets one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in greenbacks of the
one-thousand-dollar denomination, one hundred thousand dollars in
national-currency notes of the one-hundred-dollar denomination, and one
hundred thousand dollars in gold certificates. I left to the credit of
my account twenty-seven thousand eight hundred and sixty-two dollars and
some odd cents. Eight thousand of these have been already drawn this
morning. It is not unlikely that the whole of what is left may be drawn
within the next five minutes, and the next draft upon you will find you
insolvent. If the balance is against you at the clearing-house, you
will undoubtedly be obliged to stop payment before one o’clock.”

Fields’s interlocutor turned sharply around and sank into his seat. At
this three of the young members of the board–Slavin, a wool-dealer,
Debritt, a silk importer, and Saville, an insurance actuary–made a
violent onslaught upon the teller, but others interposed.

What was to be said? What was to be done? Somebody cried for a
policeman, and would have thrown up a window and called into the street.
But the act was prevented. It was denounced as childish. After a moment,
everybody but Fields had seated himself in his accustomed place,
overcome with agitation. Those who could see devoured the teller with
their eyes. Two others wept with puerile fear and anger. They began to
realize the plight they were in. It began to dawn upon them that an
immense disaster was hanging over their heads. How were they to escape
from it? Which way were they to turn to find relief? It was no time for
brawling and denunciation; they were in the hands of an unscrupulous
man, who, at this crucial moment, was as cool and implacable as an
iceberg. They watched him carelessly draw and redraw his handkerchief
through his fingers; he was unmoved, and entirely at ease.

“Can it be possible!” said a tall and aged director, rising from his
chair and bending upon the culprit a look of great impressiveness–”can
it be possible that it is our upright and stainless clerk who confesses
to such a stupendous villainy as this? Can it be that one who has earned
so much true esteem from his fellow-men thus turns upon them and–”

“Yes, yes, yes!” replied Fields, impatiently, “that is all true; but it
is all sentiment. Let us descend to business. I know the extent of my
wickedness better than you do. I have taken for my own use from your
bank. I have robbed you of between a quarter and a half million of
dollars. I am a pure robber. That is the worst you can say of me. The
worst you can do with me is to throw me into prison for ten years. By
the National Currency Act of 1865, section 55, you will see that for
this offence against you I may be incarcerated from five to ten
years–not more than ten. If you imprison me for ten years, you do your
worst. During those ten years I shall have ample time to perfect myself
in at least three languages, and to read extensively, and I shall leave
the jail at forty-five a polished and learned man, in the prime of life,
and possessed of enormous wealth. There will be no pleasure that I
cannot purchase. I shall become a good-natured cynic; I shall freely
admit that I have disturbed the ordinary relations of labor and
compensation, but I shall so treat the matter that I shall become the
subject of a semi-admiration that will relieve me from social ostracism.
I have carefully reviewed the ground. I shall go to jail, pass through
my trial, receive my sentence, put on my prisoner’s suit, begin my
daily tasks, and all with as much equanimity as I possess at present.
There will be no contrition and no shame. Do not hope to recover a
dollar of your money. I have been careful to secrete it so that the most
ingenious detectives and the largest rewards will not be able to obtain
a hint of its whereabouts. It is entirely beyond your reach.”

Fields was now an entire master of the situation. The board was filled
with consternation; its members conferred together in frightened
whispers.

“But,” pursued Fields, “do you properly understand your situation? My
desk is virtually without money. My assistant at this instant may
discover that he has not sufficient funds to pay the check he has in his
hand. In a moment more the street may be in possession of the facts.
Besides the present danger, have you forgotten the controller?” Nothing
more could now add to the alarm that filled the room.

“What shall we do, Fields? We cannot go under; we cannot–”

“I will tell you.”

The room became silent again. All leaned forward to listen. Some placed
their hands behind their ears.

“I do not think that the drafts upon us to-day will amount to eighty
thousand dollars. You might draw that sum from the receiving teller, but
that would occasion remark. I advise you to draw from your private
accounts elsewhere one hundred thousand dollars, and quietly place it
upon my counter. I would do it without an instant’s delay.”

“But what guarantee have we that you will not appropriate that also?”

“I give you my word,” replied Fields, with a smile.

“And to what end do you advise us to keep the bank intact?”

“That we may have time to arrange terms.”

“Terms–for what?”

“For a compromise.”

“Ah-ha!”

Here was a patch of blue sky–a glimpse of the sun. Fields was not
insensible to moderation, after all.

“What do you propose?” eagerly demanded three voices.

“I think you had first better insure yourselves against suspension,” was
the reply.

In ten minutes one of the directors hurriedly departed, with five checks
in his wallet. These were the contributions of his fellows. The
president passed out to see how matters stood at the paying teller’s
desk. No more drafts had been presented, and the nineteen thousand
dollars were still undisturbed. He returned reassured. He locked the
door again.

“Now, sir,” said he to the paying teller, “let us go on.”

“Very well,” was the reply. “I think you all perceive by this time the
true position of affairs. I possess three hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, and your bank has lost that sum. I have detailed the benefits
which will accrue to me, and the trouble which will in all likelihood
accrue to you. It will be unpleasant for you to throw your selves upon
the mercies of your stockholders. Stockholders are hard-hearted people.
Each one of you will, in case this matter is discovered, find his
financial credit and his reputation for sagacity much impaired; and,
besides this, there will be incurred the dangers of a ‘run’ upon you, to
say nothing of the actual loss to the institution, which will have to be
made good to the last dollar. But let us see if we cannot do better.
Notwithstanding the fact that I have fully made up my mind to go to
prison, I cannot deny that not to go to prison would be an advantage.
Therefore, if you will promise me immunity from prosecution, I will
return to you to-morrow morning a quarter of a million dollars. I ask
you to give me a reply within five minutes. The proposition is a bare
one, and is sufficiently plain. I shall require your faith as directors
and individuals, and in return I will give my pledge, as a robber of the
highest grade–a bond which perhaps is as good as any that can be made
under the circumstances.”

The directors no sooner saw that it lay within their power to regain
five-sevenths of their money than they began, almost with one voice,
threaten Fields with punishment if he did not return the whole.

“Gentlemen,” cried the paying teller, interrupting their exclamations,
“I must impose one more condition. It is that you do not mention this
affair again–that you keep the whole matter secret, and not permit it
to be known beyond this apartment that I have had any other than the
most agreeable relations with you. All that is imperative. There remain
but two more minutes. The president will signify to me your decision.”

The time elapsed. Fields put his watch into his pocket.

“Well, sir?” said he.

“We accept the terms,” replied the president, bowing stiffly.

Fields also bowed. A silence ensued. Presently a director said to
Fields:

“May I ask you what led you to this step?”

“Sir,” replied the teller, with severity, “you are encroaching upon our
contract. I may speak of this affair, but you have no right to.”

Then he turned to the board:

“Do you wish me to go back to my work?”

There was a consultation. Then the president said:

“If you will be so kind.”

Fields complied.

The business of the day went forward as usual. The teller’s counter-desk
was supplied with money, and no suspicion was aroused among his
fellows.

As each director went out of the bank, he stopped at Fields’s window,
and addressed some set remark to him upon business matters; and so
intimate did the relations between them seem that the clerks concluded
that the lucky man was about to be made cashier, and they began to pay
him more respect.

In the intervening night there again recurred to the directors the
enormity of the outrage to which they had been subjected. The incident
of recovering so large a part of what they had originally supposed was
gone had the effect of making them partially unmindful of the loss of
the smaller sum which the teller finally agreed to accept in place of
punishment. But in the lapse between the time of the robbery and the
time of the promised restitution, their appreciation of their position
had time to revive again, and when they assembled on the next morning to
receive the money from Fields, they were anxious and feverish.

Would he come? Was he not at this moment in Canada? Would a man who
could steal one hundred thousand dollars return a quarter of a million?
Absurd!

Every moment one of them went to the door to see if Fields had appeared.
The rest walked about, with their hands behind them, talking together
incoherently. The air was full of doubts. The teller usually came at a
quarter past nine, but the hour arrived without the man. Intolerable
suspense!

Two or three of the directors made paths for themselves amid the chairs,
and anxiously traversed them. Slavin took a post beside a window and
gazed into the street. Debritt, with his right hand in his bosom, and
with his left grasping the upper rail of a seat, looked fixedly into the
coals. Stuart sipped at a goblet of water, but his trembling hand caused
him to spill its contents upon the floor. No one now ventured to speak
except in a whisper; it seemed that a word or a loud noise must disturb
the poise of matters. The clock ticked, the blue flames murmured in the
grate, and the pellets of sand thrown up by the wind rattled against the
windows.

But yet there were no signs of the paying teller.

Was it possible that this immense sum of money was gone? Could it be
true that they must report this terrible thing to the world? Had they
permitted themselves to become the lieutenants to a wily scoundrel? Were
they thus waiting silent and inactive while he was being borne away at
the speed of the wind, out of their reach?

All at once Fields came in at the door.

He was met with a gladness that was only too perceptible. Every
gentleman emitted a sigh of relief, and half started, as if to take the
delinquent by the hand.

Fields had expected this. He was shrewd enough to act before the feeling
had evaporated.

He advanced to the table. The directors hastened like schoolboys to
take their accustomed places. They bent upon the teller’s face the most
anxious looks.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “I believe that you fully understand that I return
this large sum of money to you at my own option. You recognize the fact
that most men would endure, for instance, an imprisonment of ten years
rather than lose the control of a quarter of a million of dollars.”

The directors hastened to signify “Yes!”

“But,” continued Fields, taking several large envelopes from his inner
pockets, “I shall be content with less. There is the sum I mentioned.”

The directors fell upon the packages and counted their contents. The
table was strewed with money. Fields contemplated the scene with
curiosity. Presently it was announced that the sum was complete.

“Now, gentlemen,” said Fields, “you have suffered loss. I have a hundred
thousand dollars which I have forced you to present me with. That is a
large sum, though to us who are so familiar with millions it seems
small, almost insignificant; but, in reality, it has a great importance.
You now see, my friends, what a part of your money-making mechanism may
achieve. There is no bank, even of third-rate importance, in this city,
whose receiving teller or paying teller may not do exactly as I have
done. On any day, at any hour, they may load themselves with valuables
and go away. You, and all directors, depend servilely upon the pure
honesty of your clerks. You can erect no barrier, no guard, no defence,
that will protect you from the results of decayed principle in them.
They are deeply involved in dangerous elements. Ease, luxury, life-long
immunity from toil, wait upon their resolution to do ill. This
resolution may be the determination of an instant, or the result of
long-continued sophistical reasoning. You cannot detect the approach to
such a resolve in your servant, and he, perhaps, can hardly detect it in
himself. But one day it is complete: he acts upon it. You are bereft of
your property; he flees, and there is the nine days’ stir, and all is
over. Your greatest surety lies in your appreciation of your danger. I
have proved to you what that danger consists of; you did not know
before. Your best means of defence is to respect, to the fullest extent,
the people upon whom you depend. They are worthy of it. An instant’s
reflection will show you that neither of you would be proof against a
strong temptation. For the sake of recovering a sum of money you have
compounded with felony. All of you are at this moment in breach of the
law. You have submitted without a struggle to the dominant impulse. The
principle of exact honor which you demand in me does not exist in
yourselves. But let us end this disagreeable scene. Perhaps I have
demonstrated something that you never realized. I hope you understand. I
now surrender to you the one hundred thousand dollars, which you
thought I had stolen. I had no intention of keeping it; I only pretended
to take it in order to impress you with my ideas.”

Every director arose to his feet in haste. Fields placed another packet
upon the table, and, in face of the astonished board, left the
apartment.

An hour afterward he was again summoned to the parlor. He advanced to
his old position at the end of the table. It was clear that the temper
of the assembly was favorable to him.

“Mr. Fields,” said the president, “your attack upon us was singular and
rapid, and I think it has made the mark that you intended it should.
Your mode of convincing us was, one might say, dramatic; and, though I
believe you might have attained your object in another way, we
acknowledge that your letter had but little effect. We now wish to
provide for you as you claim, and as you deserve. But we cannot look
upon you with quietude. It is almost impossible to see you without
shuddering. We must place you elsewhere. If you remained here, you would
always be in close proximity to a quarter of a million dollars.”

“But you believe in my integrity?”

“Perfectly.”

“You understand my motives?”

“Fully.”

“And you acknowledge them to be just?”

“Unqualifiedly just.”

“Well?”

“But you personify a terrible threat. You are an exponent of a great
danger, and you could not ask us to live with one who showed that he
held a sword above our heads. That would be impossible. We therefore
offer you the position of actuary in the —- Life. Mr. Stuart is about
to resign it, and at our request he has consented to procure you the
chair. Your salary will be thrice that you now receive. Do you accept?”

“Without an instant’s hesitation,” replied Fields.

He then shook hands with each director, and they separated excellent
friends.

       *       *       *       *       *

Fields winged his way to the farm in the country, and told the news.
That is, he told the best of it. He told the actual news after hours,
when there was but one to tell it to.

There was a shriek.

“Oh, if they had!”

“Had what–Sun and Moon!”

“Why, sent you to prison.”

“Well, we should have had to wait ten years, that’s all. After that, we
should have been worth, with interest added to the capital, five hundred
and sixty thousand dollars.”

“Sir! Can you suppose that I would ever marry a robber, a wretched
robber?”

“Never! But it is different where one robs for the sake of principle.”

“Y–yes, that is true; I forgot that. I think that principle is a great
thing. Don’t you?”

“Exceedingly great.”

In the spring the face-walls and the lawns and the kiosks went forward
according to the original design, and the actuary frequently brought his
city friends, directors and all, down to look at them.