On that first day, the ceremony of introductions over, Mr. Hartley explained that I was to learn to do the work done by Dick Ware and Tom Turpin. These young men, Mr. Hartley informed me, had enlisted, and might be called at any time. Hoolagan had been drafted, but because of a physical defect would not be taken by the first draft. He, Mr. Hartley, then placed a chair for me at Turpin’s elbow. I was to begin by learning Turpin’s work. Never in my life had I felt even a slight interest in stocks and bonds. Now I found myself sitting cheek by jowl with a ticker. My chair was so close to the thing that the tape got the habit of running down my collar instead of into the basket. Any one can judge how much at home I felt. Even that first day I had a feeling of discomfort that I had never experienced in any of my former positions. My memory of the forenoon of that, my first day, is of a blurred puzzle—there were so many things the meaning of which I had not the faintest conception. On my return from lunch I found only Turpin and Hoolagan in the office. My chair was nowhere in sight. I placed my hand on Mr. Hartley’s chair. “Better not do that!” Turpin cried. “Hart don’t like anybody to sit in his chair.” “Who has moved my chair?” I questioned. No answer. Both men appeared to be too engrossed by their work to hear. After a few minutes, puzzled but thinking perhaps it was intended as a joke, I asked: “Where am I to sit?” Another wait. “There’s a stool,” Turpin told me, pointing over his shoulder to a high stool at the bookkeeper’s desk in the far corner. The stool was not an enticing seat, but not dreaming that any offense was intended I never dreamed of taking offense. Going over I perched myself on the stool and busied myself trying to learn how to manipulate a little machine used to make out checks. This moving of my chair was repeated the following day along with numerous other acts of petty spite. Having always been cordially received I did not at all understand. It took days for me even to suspect that I was not a welcomed addition to the department. Turpin was, of course, the man whose acts aroused this suspicion. His method of instructing me had, from the first, seemed to me peculiar. When pretending to show me how to make out the reports sent from the loan department to various officers of the bank, he would be laboriously adding or subtracting a few figures, then suddenly he would throw himself back in his chair, heave a sigh of extreme exasperation, and shout at me.