‘My age is fifty-six. For thirty years I have been in the service of the British and Scottish Banking Corporation, Limited. For eight years before that I was in the service of a small private bank in Northamptonshire. I have always served the British and Scottish faithfully, to the best of my ability. Yet after thirty years I was only a cashier in a suburban branch with a salary of two hundred a year--such an income as many a more fortunate man spends on cigars and neckties. I do not, however, blame anyone for this. I do not blame myself. I realize clearly that I am a very mediocre man, and deserved nothing better. I never had any talent for banking. I never had any talent for anything. I became a bank clerk through the persuasion and influence of a distant uncle. I agreed with him that it was an honourable and dignified vocation. It has suited me. I got used to the official duties. I soon learnt how to live within my income. I had no vicious tastes--no tastes of any sort. I had no social gifts. I merely did my work conscientiously. My evenings I spent reading the papers and periodicals and smoking. I have smoked two ounces of Old Judge per week regularly for five-and-twenty years. I have never smoked before lunch except during my annual fortnight at the seaside. Every morning at breakfast I have read the _Standard_. My political opinions have never varied. ‘Thus my life has been one of absolute sameness. There was no joy in it except the satisfaction of regular habits, and there was no sorrow, until last year but one (May 28th), when Miss Juana Craig walked into the office at Kilburn. ‘She said, “Is my father in his office?” ‘I did not know her, had never seen her before, but I guessed at once that she was the daughter of Mr. Raphael Craig, the manager of our branch. I say she said, “Is my father in his office?” Nothing beyond those words, and yet they had the same effect on me as if they had been the most magnificent piece of oratory. I was literally struck dumb with emotion. There was something peculiar in her rich voice that overcame me. She was obliged to repeat the question. ‘At last I said, “Miss Craig, I presume. No; Mr. Craig is not in, but he will be in shortly.” ‘I stammered this as though I had been repeating a badly-learnt lesson. ‘She said, “Then I will wait in his room, if I may.” ‘The way she said those last three words, “if I may,” made me feel dizzy. There was a sort of appeal in them. Of course I knew it was only politeness--formal politeness--yet I was deeply touched by it. And I felt ashamed that this beautiful girl should, in a way, have to beg a favour from old me.