John had entered the bank as clerk when the president was teller—almost twenty years ago—and had worked under him ever since. Both men at first sight impressed one as of a type very common in this bustling country of ours. Small, nervous men, with light, drooping mustaches, and excitable ways, they both were. To each of them the touch of silver, or the smell of dirty bills, or the holding of a pen between the fingers was but the signal for a certain set of reactions on the accuracy of which his claim to usefulness in this world depended. Mere machines one might call them both, but there was a vast difference between them nevertheless. For, while John's nervousness was the nervousness of dissipated force, the president's was that of concentrated alertness and precision and celerity. John was a very poor machine, indeed, and as like as not to go wrong and become tangled up in his own mechanism. Habinger, on the other hand, was a very perfect one, and it was a saying in the bank that he could foot a column with every wink of his eye. His every pen-stroke, too, was an ultimatum, and stood on the books as it was first written, without blot or erasure. So John (who had no other standards to measure men by but those of the ledger and the time-lock) had made an idol of the president. In his worship he was not only sincere and fervent, but entirely without jealousy; for whatever egotism he might have had to start with must long ago have been knocked out of him by the successions of selfish and ambitious clerks he had seen pass beyond and above him; and, as Bill had so cruelly hinted, by his ten years of unfruitful married life. It was, then, a real pleasure for John, on days when business was rushing, to have Habinger unceremoniously shove him aside at the counter, and in fifteen minutes dispose of a long row of customers whom the hapless teller had suffered to gather there. At these times John would stand behind the president, and look over his shoulder with wonder like a little child's on his face; and when the work was finished, his "Thank you, sir; thank you!" was uttered in a tone of glad gratitude quite unalloyed, even by the consciousness of Bill's sneering whispers at his back, or by the sly smile of the next depositor, as he handed over his bills and checks. So, as I said, I wished greatly to be in the bank when the president came; and with this purpose I lingered a moment over my time at the check-file, pretending to be very much occupied. John's eye this morning, however, was as sharp as Habinger's; and, as the pointer of the clock above his head marked five minutes past the half hour, he called out brusquely, "Hi, Jimmy! Time you were gone; and a heavy clearing this morning, too, so you want to be back early."