"Well, sir, a bank clerk is trained to be suspicious. Every new customer who comes to the place is an object of suspicion to a man like me. He may want to cheat us. Every cheque that's drawn is an object of suspicion because it may be a forgery, or the drawer may not have a balance to meet it. Then money--the number of bad coins I've detected, sir, would fill a big chest full of sham gold and silver, so that one grows to doubt and suspect every sovereign one handles. Then, sir, there's men in general, and even your own people. It's a bad life, sir, a bad life, a bank clerk's, for you grow at last so that you even begin to doubt yourself." "Ah! but that is a morbid feeling, Thickens." "No, sir, it's a true one. I've had such a fight as you couldn't believe, doubting myself and whether I was right: but I think I am." "Well," said the curate, smiling a faint, dejected smile; "but you are still keeping me in the dark." "It will be light directly," said Thickens fiercely, "light that is blinding. I dread almost to speak and let you hear." "Go on, man; go on." "I will, sir. Well, for years past I've been in doubt about our bank." "Dixons', that every one trusts?" "Yes, sir, that's it. Dixons' has been trusted by everybody. Dixons', after a hundred years' trial, has grown to be looked upon as the truth in commerce. It has been like a sort of money mill set going a hundred years ago, and once set going it has gone on of itself, always grinding coin." "But you don't mean to tell me that the bank is unsafe? Man, man, it means ruin to hundreds of our friends!" He spoke in an impassioned way, but at the same time he felt more himself; the vague horror had grown less. "Hear me out, sir; hear me out," said Thickens slowly. "Years ago, sir, I began to doubt, and then I doubted myself, and then I doubted again, but even then I couldn't believe. Doubts are no use to a man like me, sir; he must have figures, and figures I couldn't get to prove it, sir. I must be able to balance a couple of pages, and then if the balance is on the wrong side there's something to go upon. It has taken years to get these figures, but I've got them now." "Thickens, you are torturing me with this slow preamble." "For a few minutes, sir," said the clerk pathetically, "for an hour. It has tortured me for years. Listen, sir. I began to doubt--not Dixons' stability, but something else." The vague horror began to increase again, and Christie Bayle's hands grew more damp.