Moreover, Mr. Bingle was confident that all of the high officials in the bank, from the president down to the seventh assistant cashier, had noticed his tremendous shortcoming, and that they were even now whispering among themselves that he ought to be discharged forthwith. He could feel people glaring at him from behind; he could feel the president's eyes, and the four vice-presidents' eyes, and the chairman of the board's eyes and all of the directors' eyes boring holes through the partitions to fix their accusing gaze upon him as he bent nervously over the huge ledger and tried to shrink into invisibility. He had committed a heinous, inexcusable, unpardonable offence. He would have to pay the penalty. After all these years of faithful service, he would be kicked out in disgrace; some one else would be sitting in his place after luncheon and some one else would be hanging his coat and hat in the locker he had used for fifteen years without--His eyes grew misty as he bent a little closer to the page and tried to focus his thoughts on what was actually before him. What difference would it make to these heartless plutocrats and overlords when he told them that his wife was ill and that he could not leave his home until the doctor had come to reassure him? What did they know about connubial happiness and connubial obligations? They would stare at him coldly--or perhaps laugh in his face--and say that the fate of a great banking institution could not be put in jeopardy just because Mrs. Bingle happened to be critically ill. Mr. Bingle, for the first time in his life, began to appreciate his own importance. He began to realise that in all likelihood the bank would go to pieces as the result of his failure to appear at his desk at the appointed minute. He recalled having seen the first vice-president and the cashier in close conversation as he slunk through the little passage behind the latter's office, and he remembered also with sickening clearness that they stopped talking and stared at him as he hurried by. And, now that he thought of it, the first vice-president had smiled pleasantly and had said something that sounded like "good morning, Mr. Bingle," although it certainly couldn't have been that. It was regarded as especially ominous when an official of the bank said good-morning to a clerk or a bookkeeper. It meant, according to tradition, that his days were numbered. It was a sort of preliminary sentence. Later on, there would come a summons to appear at the "office." Mr. Bingle sat on his stool, his feet hooked rigidly in the stretchers as if prepared to resist any effort to yank him out of the place he had held for fifteen years, and all the while he was listening for the voice of the messenger at his shoulder, ordering him to step into Mr. Force's room.