"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."_