Great Stories of Humor - My Financial Career - Stephen Leacock (Abridged and Simplified)

Great Stories of Humor - My Financial Career Stephen Leacock 

(Abridged and Simplified)

Whenever I enter a bank I feel nervous. The clerks, the counters, and the sight of money rattle me. On entering a bank I seem to lose all my thinking powers. I lose all sense of responsibility and begin behaving like a fool.

                      

I knew all this beforehand but my salary had been raised to fifty dollars a month and I felt that the bank was the only place for it.

                      

So I walked unsteadily because of nervousness and looked timidly round at the clerks. I had a strangle idea that a person opening an accountant must consult the manager.

                      

I went up to a wicket marked `Accountant' The accountant was a tall fellow, extremely cool in his manner. The very appearance of the man made me nervous. My voice sounded deep and hollow.

                      

‘Can I see the manager?' I said and added solemnly, ‘alone’ I don't know why I said ‘alone'. Certainly', said the accountant and fetched him. I held my fifty-six dollars clutched in a crumpled ball in my pocket. 'Are you the manager?', I said. God knows I didn't doubt it.

                       

‘Yes', he said

                      

‘Can I see you', I asked, `alone?' I didn't want to say ‘alone' again, but without it the thing seemed self - evident.

                      

The manager looked at me in some alarm. He felt that I had an awful secret to reveal.

                       

‘Come in here', he said, and took me to his private room.

He locked it inside.

                       'We are safe from interruption here, he said, 'sit down’.

                        We both sat down and looked at each other. I found no voice to speak.

                        'Are you one of Pinkerton's the famous private detective agency?" asked the manager.

                        He had gathered from my mysterious manner that I was a detective.

      

'No, not from Pinkerton's', I said seeming to imply that I came from a rival agency. To tell the truth,' I went on, as if I had been prompted to lie about it, 'I am not a detective at all. I have come to open an account. I intend to deposit all my money in the bank'.

                             

The manager looked relieved but still serious; he thought that I must be son of Baron Rothchild or a young Gold.

                              

‘A large amount, I suppose,' he said 'Fairly large', I whispered. 'I propose to deposit fifty-six dollars now and fifty dollars a month regular.

                               

The manager got up and opened the door and called the accountant.

                                      

'Mr. Montgomery', he said unkindly loud. 'This gentleman is opening an account, he will deposit fifty-six dollars Good Morning'. 

                                      

I rose.

                                       

A big iron door stood opened at the side of the room.

     

‘Good morning', I said, and stepped into the safe.

                                      

‘Come out'. said the manager coldly, and showed me the other way.

                                     

I went to the accountant's door and trusted the ball of money at him with a violently disturbing movement as if I were performing a piece of magic.

                                      

My face was ghastly pale.

                                     

 'Here', I said, 'deposit it'.

                                      

The tone of the words seemed to mean, 'Let us do this painful thing while the fit is on us!.

                                       

He took the money and gave it to another clerk.

                                       

I filled a slip and signed a book. I no longer knew what I was doing. I became giddy.

                                      

'Is it deposited?' I asked in a thin shaking voice.

                                       

'It is', said the accountant.

      

'Then I wanted to draw a cheque'. My idea was to draw six dollars for current expenses. I got a cheque - book through a wicket. Someone began telling me how to write it out. The people in the bank had the impression that I was an invalid millionaire. I wrote something on the cheque and thrust it in at the clerk. He looked at it. What! Are you withdrawing the whole amount'? he asked in surprise Then I realized that I had written fifty-six instead of six. I felt that it was too late then to retrace. I had a feeling that it was impossible to explain the thing. All the clerks had stopped writing to look at me.

                                        

Without caring for the consequences, I made a plunge.

                                        

'Yes, the whole thing'. 

                                       

 'You withdraw your money from the bank?'

                                        

‘Every cent of it'.

                                        

‘Are you not going to deposit any more?' said the clerk, astonished.

                                       

‘Never'.

    

A foolish hope struck me that they might think something had insulted me while I was writing the cheque and that I had changed my mind. I made a wretched attempt to look like a man with a fearfully quick temper. The clerk was prepared to pay the money. 'How will you have it?' he said. "What?'

                                   

‘Oh'-I caught his meaning and answered without even trying to think - in fifties'.

                                    

He gave me a fifty dollar bill `And the six?' he asked dryly. 'In sixes', I said.

                                   

He gave it to me and I rushed out.

                                    

When the big door swung behind me, I caught the echo of a roads of laughter that went up to the ceiling of the bank. Since then I banked no more. I kept my money in cash in my trousers pocket and my savings in silver dollars in a sock.

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