Books: Mr. Bingle
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George Barr McCutcheon >> Mr. Bingle
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"Well, well, here you are!" he cried, rubbing his cold hands
vigorously before offering to grasp the bony old fingers that were
extended to him. "Glad to see you back, Uncle Joe. Comfortable? Well,
well, how are you?" He shook his uncle's hand warmly. "Sorry to see
you laid up again, sir, but we'll have you as good as new in no time.
Eh, doctor? As good as new, eh?"
Uncle Joe had nothing to say. He clung to his nephew's hand and smiled
faintly.
Mr. Bingle looked puzzled. This was not like the Uncle Joe he had
known. He sent a questioning glance toward the sober-faced doctor, and
then sat down beside the bed, very much shaken by the news that came
to him in the significant shake of Dr. Fiddler's head.
After many minutes had passed, Uncle Joe began to speak to his nephew.
His voice was weak and the words came haltingly.
"Tom, you are a good boy--as good as gold. No, that isn't fair to you.
You're better than gold. I honestly believe you like me, wretched and
troublesome as I am. Your mother loved me, Tom. No one ever had a
sister who loved a brother more than she loved me. Thank God, she died
long before I came to this dreadful pass. She was spared seeing me as
I am now. Well, I want to ask a last favour of you, nephew. I want you
to see that I am buried beside your mother up at Syracuse. Just have a
simple funeral, my boy. No fuss, no flowers, no singing. Then take me
up to the old burying ground and--and I won't bother any one after
that. I suppose it will cost you something to do it, but--but if you
knew how much it will mean to me now if I have your promise to--"
"Sh!" whispered Mr. Bingle. "Don't talk of dying, Uncle Joe. Don't
speak of graveyards while--"
"Will you promise? That's the question," said Uncle Joe stubbornly.
"Yes," said Mr. Bingle painfully; "when the time comes I'll lay you
beside my mother. Don't worry about it, Uncle Joe."
"I hate to put you to the expense of--"
"Pooh!" said Mr. Bingle, as if the cost of the thing was the merest
trifle to him.
"If I were to live for a thousand years, Tom, I could never find the
means to adequately compensate you and Mary for the joy and comfort
you have given me at so great a cost to yourselves. By dying, I may be
able to make your load lighter, so I am going to die as quickly as the
doctor will allow me to do so."
He died at nine o'clock that night. The next day Mr. Bingle notified
his three children that he was taking their father to Syracuse for
burial, and that if they chose to do so they could come to the
apartment late that afternoon for the brief funeral service. Geoffrey,
speaking for his sisters as well as for himself, expressed regret that
poor Tom had been saddled with certain annoyances and inconvenience in
connection with the late Joseph Hooper, and that they, as a family,
would be pleased to assume the cost of his funeral, provided Tom would
present an itemized statement on his return from Syracuse, covering
all legitimate expenses not only in connection with the funeral but
also anything that may have arisen during his most recent illness.
And Mr. Bingle, without consulting his wife, informed Geoffrey that he
was quite able to meet all of the expenses without aid from "the
family" and that he preferred to have nothing more said about the
matter. Whereupon Geoffrey told him to go ahead and do as he pleased
about it, and hung up the telephone receiver.
Greatly to the amazement and relief of the Bingles, Dr. Fiddler
insisted on paying all of the funeral expenses, including the railroad
fare of the two mourners to and from Syracuse. Moreover, he calmly
announced that he would not accept a penny from Mr. Bingle for
services rendered the sick man.
"Mary," said Mr. Bingle, on the way back to New York after the
interment in Syracuse, "if everybody in this world was as good as Dr.
Fiddler, what a happy place it would be. Just think of it! He gave all
of his time, all of his experience--everything--and now refuses to
take a cent from me. It isn't everybody who is as easy on the poor as
that man is, my dear. He is a--a real nobleman."
Mrs. Bingle had been thinking too. "Well, I dare say he makes up for
it by being a little harder on the rich every time he finds it
necessary to be easy on the poor," she said cryptically.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing," she said, ashamed of her estimate of the good doctor. "I
shouldn't have said that."
"I insist on an explanation."
"Well, if you must have it, I'll bet he gets even somehow. I'd hate to
be his next patient if I was rich enough to call him in to attend me."
"I am surprised at you, Mary," said Mr. Bingle, and his expression
convinced her that he really was.
CHAPTER IV
FORTY MINUTES LATE
Mr. Bingle was late at the bank the morning after their return from
the North. Not in all the years of his connection with the institution
had such a thing happened to him--or to the bank, for that matter. He
made it a point to be punctual. In his opinion, a man was taking
something that did not belong to him when he failed his employer in
the matter of promptness. Working AFTER hours to make up the lost time
was, in his estimation, a rather cowardly form of penance; it was
simply a confession that the delinquent had robbed his master of a
certain number of fresh minutes earlier in the day, and was trying to
restore them at the end of the day, when he was in no condition to
give as good as he had taken.
One could set his watch by Thomas Bingle. All of the clocks, and all
of the watches, and all of the clerks in the bank might be late, but
NEVER Thomas Bingle. He kept absolutely perfect time, year in and year
out. And so, when he came dashing into the bank on this particular
morning nearly forty minutes late, every man in the long counting-room
jerked out his watch and glanced at its face with an expression of
alarm in his eyes, absolutely convinced that he had made the heart-
breaking mistake of getting down to work forty minutes too soon. Such
a thing as Mr. Bingle getting down forty minutes too late was
infinitely more improbable than that all the rest of them should have
reported that much too early.
The tardy one was conscious of the concentrated stare of sixty eyes as
he slid onto the stool in front of his desk and began to fumble with
the pens and blotters. The man at his left elbow said "well, well!"
and the man at his right elbow said "st! st! st!" with his tongue in a
most reproachful manner. They could understand Mr. Bingle's absence
for three whole days, having got wind of a death in the family, but,
for the life of them, they couldn't see what he meant by spoiling a
perfectly clean record for punctuality when he might have remained
away for the entire day, just as well as not, instead of upsetting a
hallowed tradition in the bank by coming in forty minutes late.
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.
The trip to Syracuse had been too much for Mrs. Bingle. The railway
coaches were cold; she shivered nearly all the way up and all the way
back, notwithstanding Melissa's furs and the extra suit of flannels
she had donned at Mr. Bingle's suggestion. She came home with a
frightful cold and a temperature that frightened her husband almost
out of his boots.
She was not in the habit of taking long journeys by train. As a matter
of fact, she had never been farther away from Manhattan Island than
Hartford, Connecticut, and that experience befell her in the middle of
an extremely torrid June. Perhaps a half-dozen times in the fifteen
years of her married life she had gone to Peekskill to visit her
mother and a married sister, but always in warm weather. Not that she
was too poor to make the trip to Peekskill as often as she liked, but
her mother and sister made it unnecessary by coming to New York for
frequent and sometimes protracted visits at the Bingle apartment, and
usually without first inquiring whether it would be convenient or
otherwise. She very sensibly realised that Mr. Bingle saw quite enough
of his wife's relatives in this way, and refused to drag him into the
country to see more of them. He had better use for his Sundays, and as
for his vacations, they were always spent at home in the laudable
effort to save a little money against the rainy day that people are
always talking about. So Mrs. Bingle stayed at home, and contrived to
love her good little husband more and more as each narrow day went by,
winter and summer, year in and year out, and not once did the iron of
discontent enter her soul. Some day, when they could really afford it,
they were going away for a month's fishing-trip in the wilds of Maine,
but all that could wait. It was something to look forward to, and
there is a lot in that.
Neither of them had ever dreamed that Syracuse was so near to the
North Pole, nor had they the remotest idea that the weather could be
so cold anywhere on earth as it was in the upper part of New York
State. The coldest days they had ever known in New York City--and they
had always believed that nothing could be colder--were balmy when
compared with that awful day on the outskirts of Syracuse--that bleak,
blighting day in the wind-swept graveyard where the mother of Thomas
Bingle slept.
They fairly shrivelled in their skins as they stood beside the open
grave and saw, through blurred eyes, the last of Uncle Joe. Both of
Mr. Bingle's ears were frozen quite stiff. A much be-furred
undertaker's assistant rubbed snow on them with what seemed to be
unnecessary vigour and told him to have 'em looked after when he got
back to New York. They were ugly things, those ears of his, and Mr.
Bingle was acutely conscious of their size and colour as he sat at his
desk and waited for word to come to "the office." A sudden and almost
insupportable itching of his heels filled him with fresh alarm, and
for one ghastly moment he forgot his ears and his crime. Were his
heels frost-bitten? If so--then, what was to become of him?
"Get your uncle buried all right?" inquired his left-hand neighbour,
suddenly speaking out of the void. Mr. Bingle's reply was a guilty,
bewildered start. The man went on: "What did he die of?"
"Oh," said Mr. Bingle hazily, "most assuredly."
"I said, what ailed him?"
"Why, he was dead," said Mr. Bingle, vaguely surprised by the other's
obtuseness. "That's why we buried him."
"I see," said the questioner, after staring hard for a moment. He
edged a little farther away from Mr. Bingle and shot a swift glance of
apprehension in the direction of the door.
"I couldn't help being late," ventured Mr. Bingle, his first apology
in fifteen years. "My wife is sick, Jenkins--mighty sick. The doctor
couldn't come at once, so I had to wait. She--"
"Say," said Jenkins nervously, "the old man didn't die of anything
catching, did he?"
"Catching?"
"I mean contagious. Your wife hasn't caught anything from him, has
she? If she has, you oughtn't to come around here carrying--"
"He died of old age," said Mr. Single stiffly.
"Sure?"
"Of course."
"Well, we all catch that if we live long enough," said Jenkins,
considerably relieved. "How old was he?"
"Seventy-three."
"Leave anything?"
Mr. Bingle was suddenly bereft of all power of speech. Three men were
standing just outside the long bronze caging that enclosed the
bookkeeping-department, and they were looking at him with a directness
that was even more pronounced than the stare of utter dismay with
which he favoured them. There could be no mistake: they were
discussing him--Thomas Bingle! And they were discussing him with
unquestionable seriousness. His heart flopped down to his heels and
his poor ears burned with a fierceness that caused him to fear that
they were on the point of bursting into flames. The first vice-
president was pointing him out to the president, there could be no
doubt about that; and the pompous president was bobbing his head in a
most extraordinary manner, there could be no doubt about that either.
The third man of the trio was the chief watchman, and he was looking
at Mr. Bingle as a cat looks at a captured mouse. It was all over!
They were about to arrest him for embezzlement or murder or something
equally as heinous. Mr. Bingle turned colder than he had been at any
time during his stay in the ice-bound city of Syracuse.
Then the trio abruptly turned away and left him sitting there, frozen
to the marrow. He tried to swallow, but his throat was paralysed.
"Gee, that looks bad, Bingle," whispered Jenkins, pityingly. "That was
the old man. What--what the dickens have you been up to?"
Mr. Bingle's stiff lips moved but no sound came forth. He was to be
discharged! In fifteen years he had been late at his desk but once,
and he was to be discharged! What would Mary say? What would become of
Mary? What would become of Melissa, now that they couldn't afford to
keep a servant?
"You been here longer than any one, too," went on Jenkins. "How long
has it been, Bingle?"
"Fifteen years," gulped Mr. Bingle, in a strange, unnatural voice.
"That's longer than the old man himself," said Jenkins. "He's been
president less'n twelve years. Say, Bingle, I'm all broke up over it.
I--I hope it ain't as bad as we think. Maybe--oh, I say, it's your
EARS! That's what it is. Mr. Force was showing him your ears. And say,
take it from me, Bingle, they're worth going a long way to see, too.
Good Lord, what a relief!" Mr. Bingle actually took hope. Could it be
possible? Were frozen ears so rare a sight that the president of a
great bank--But even as he grasped at the straw he became convinced
that it was very likely to prove his salvation, for, to his amazement
and confusion, the cashier and the fourth vice-president strolled up
to the caging and regarded him with the gravest interest. He bent his
head to the task before him, hoping against hope that it WAS his ears
and not his tardiness. And, when he looked up again many minutes
afterward, other officials of the bank were looking at him from
various points of vantage, and all of them were staring with the most
amazing intentness, quite as if they had never seen anything so
strange as the man who had sat unnoticed in this very spot for fifteen
years and more. Messengers took a peep at him as they circled from
window to window; patrons of the bank sauntered past and squinted
vaguely in his direction.
Vice-president Force came back a second time and actually pointed him
out to an utter stranger, at the same time waving his hand at Mr.
Bingle in a most friendly and engaging manner!
The poor bookkeeper reeled on his stool. He laid his pen down, removed
the green shade from over his eyes, placed his blotters neatly in the
rack, and turning to Jenkins, said:
"I can't stand it, Jenkins. I've--I've just got to know the worst. I'm
going to the office."
"With--without being sent for?" gasped Jenkins.
"There's no use putting it off. I--"
A dapper little page appeared at Mr. Bingle's elbow, interrupting him
with the curt remark that Mr. Force wanted to see him when it was
convenient.
"Convenient?" murmured Mr. Bingle, his eyes bulging.
"Well, great--" began Jenkins.
"That's what he said: convenient," said the page loftily. "Gee, where
did you get them ears?"
Mr. Bingle got down from his stool slowly, painfully.
"I guess I'll go now," he said. "It's just as convenient for me to get
out now as--"
"I can't understand that 'convenient' business," broke in Jenkins,
wrinkling his brow. "Well, good luck, Bingle. I'm sorry."
Sixty wistful, sympathetic eyes followed Mr. Bingle as he made his way
out to the passage. The word had gone 'round that "old Bingy" was to
get the sack, and every one was saying to himself that if they
discharged a man like Bingle for being late it wouldn't be safe for
any one to transgress for even the tiniest fraction of an instant.
Half-way down the narrow aisle leading to the offices, Mr. Bingle
stopped to wipe his brow and to pull himself together for the coming
ordeal. A high-and-mighty young man who had been elevated from a
clerkship to the post of third assistant foreign teller, and who no
longer deemed it proper to associate with his erstwhile companions in
the "galleys," emerged from his cage and, coming abruptly upon the
shivering bookkeeper, blinked uncertainly for a moment and then said
in what was unmistakably a polite and even respectful tone:
"Good morning, Mr. Bingle. Pleasant day, sir, isn't it?"
If Mr. Bingle had been in a condition to notice such things as
miracles, he might have been struck by this one, but he merely said it
WAS a pleasant day and resumed his way, utterly oblivious to the fact
that a human being had been completely transformed before his very
eyes. A few steps farther on he encountered an even mightier force
than the third assistant foreign teller: the bank detective.
"Good morning, Mr. Bingle. Nice day, sir," said the bank detective,
somewhat eagerly, and stood aside to let the lowly bookkeeper pass
without being jostled--as was the custom.
"Morning," said Mr. Bingle, still unimpressed. It seemed to him that
every one was evincing a singular interest in the fact that he was
about to be discharged on a pleasant day.
Mr. Force was seated at his desk when Bingle entered the room and
found himself in the presence of the man who was certain to become
president when "the old man" died--an event that would have to occur
if the first vice-president's dream of elevation ever came true, for
there wasn't the remotest likelihood that he would have the sense of
decency to resign, no matter how old or how senile he became in the
course of time.
Now, Mr. Force took himself very seriously. Having married an
exceedingly wealthy woman after a career in which liveliness had meant
more to him than livelihood, he assumed that if he treated the world
at large with extreme aloofness it would soon forget--and overlook--
the fact that he had never amounted to a row of pins in the estimation
of those who knew him as a harvester in Broadway. Shortly before his
marriage--at forty-three--he abandoned an extensive crop of wild oats
in the very heart of New York City--announcing that he intended to
retire from active business and go to work.
Going to work meant stepping into a bank as its third vice-president
the week after his return from a honeymoon spent with a bride who
held, in her own right, something over one-half of the entire capital
stock of the institution. Her wedding present to him was the third
vice-presidency and the everlasting enmity of every director and
official in the bank. He accepted both in the spirit in which they
were given. To the surprise of his enemies and the scorn of his
friends, he promptly settled down and made himself so valuable to the
bank that even his wife was vindicated. He managed in one way or
another to increase her holdings and soon was in a position to dictate
to those officially above him. He dictated so effectually in the case
of the first and second vice-president that they preferred to resign
rather than to continue the struggle to keep him in his place. Before
he had been in the bank a year, he was its first vice-president.
It was generally conceded that the president himself would have been
in jeopardy but for the fact that he was the father of Mrs. Force and
therefore exempt. In order to clarify the situation, it is necessary
to state that the bride inherited her extensive holdings from a former
husband, who, it appears, died of old age when she was but twenty-six.
It would also appear that her father owed his position as president to
the influence of Mr. Force's predecessor, or rather to the influence
that his daughter exercised over an old gentleman in his dotage. Be
that as it may, the present chief executive of the bank was immune for
life. To quote the directorate, he couldn't be FORCED out of office.
His son-in-law would be obliged to wait. He could afford to wait. He
was forty-four.
It has been said that Mr. Sydney Force was seated at his desk when
Thomas Bingle sidled into the luxurious office. It must now be added
that he did not retain his seat for more than a second after Mr.
Bingle's entrance. In fact, he fairly leaped to his feet, frightening
his visitor into a sudden, spasmodic movement of the hand in search of
the door-knob and a backward shuffle of both feet at once. The little
bookkeeper's alarm was groundless. Mr. Force came forward, beaming,
his hand extended.
"How are you, Mr. Bingle? Come right in. Well, well, this is splendid.
Too good to be true, 'pon my word it is." He was wringing the little
man's hand violently. "I confess that I am surprised that you
considered it worth while to come down to the bank at all, sir."
Mr. Bingle was batting his eyes furiously. He was also having a great
deal of difficulty with his knees.
"I--I couldn't help it, Mr. Force," he stammered. "I really couldn't.
It is the first time in all the years of my connection with--"
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Bingle," interrupted Mr. Force, with a
somewhat sweeping wave of the hand that took in practically all of the
office and yet no spot in particular; "this is Mr. Sigsbee." He then
stood aside and permitted Mr. Bingle to discover Mr. Sigsbee, who came
hastily out of the whirling background.
"Glad to meet you, sir," said Mr. Sigsbee, giving Mr. Bingle's hand a
tremendous squeeze. "I should have known you, Mr. Bingle, anywhere on
earth from the description given to me."
Description! Poor Bingle's blood congealed. Description? That dreadful
word could have but one application. It was never used except in
connection with people who were wanted for crime. The man was a
detective!
"Sit down, Mr. Bingle," said Force, with shocking amiability. "Will
you smoke?"
"No, thank you," said Mr. Bingle, doing his best to pull himself
together and failing completely. "As I was saying, Mr. Force, my wife--"
At this juncture, the door to an adjoining room was thrown open and
the bank's president stood revealed. At his back was the chairman of
the board and also the cashier, while somewhat indistinctly associated
with the sombre elegance of the room beyond were the figures of a
peeping stenographer and an open-mouthed secretary whose neck was
gallantly stretched almost to the point of dislocation because he was
too much of a gentleman to push the little stenographer out of his
line of vision.
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