The Republican., 1895-08-15
COULDN'T CORRECT MISTAKES.
So This Smart Bank Clerk Was just Ten
Dollars Out of Pocket.


bank clerks are infalliable. If the
axiom that practice makes perfect
could be taken literally this would be
true, but it is only relative after all
A man who spends his days in adding
and subtracting ought, If such a thing
were possible, to reach a point where
he would make no more mistakes, but
although constant practice and eternal
vigilance reduce these mistakes to a
minimum they are not disposed of en-
tirely.
A teacher in one of the North side
schools had an illustration of this fact
the other day. She got draft from a
friend in the east and took it to one of
the downtown banks to be cashed.
This thing hadn't happened to her
many times in her life and she was a
little confused as to the method of
procedure. She inferred, not without
some show of reason, that the gentle
man whose desk was labeled Cashier
was proper person from whom to OBJ
tain cash, although she noted that
there were no piles of greenbaczs nor
rows of coin such as a bank clerk
usually has within easy reach The
cashier told her politely to take her
draft to the paying teller She remem-
bers distinctly that he was polite
about it because he was the only polite
man she came across in the whole
establishment. She afterward under
stood that haughtiness of demeanor in
banks and other large institutions is
found to exist in direct proportion to
humblcness of rank, and that the
cashier was polite because he was an
officer and large stockholder in the
bank, while the spruce young men be-
hind the windows had no stock and
drew comparatively small salaries.
In her embarrassment at mistaking
the cashier for clerk, her idea as to
the direction he gave her was not very
clear. She caught the word teller, :"
and turned to a window marked:
"Receiving teller, A to L." She didn't
know what "a to l." stood for, bat
thought it probable that one of re-
ceiving teller's functions was to re-
ceive drafts, so she handed hers to
him. He was doing some figuring,
and, without looking up, said:
Next window, please"
There were two next windows;
one of which was marked Paying
Teller and the other Receiving
Teller, NJ to H." 1t occurred to her
for a moment that the paying teller
might be the one she wanted, but she
decided that as she had started in, on
the receiving tellers she might as
well finish them up. So she approached
Mr.. Teller from NJ to 2 and made an
other proffer of the pink slip. He
seemed to have some figuring on hand,
too, and he also said
Next window, please"
He said please" just as the other
teller did, as if he had been saying it
to stupid people with bothersome
drafts for years. AS there were only
three windows she turned to the third
with that feeling of satisfaction which
one always expesiences at the success
full ending of long search. She had
been good deal confused, but up to
this point had experienced no sense of
resentment. When, however, her
poor little draft which had made all
these vain efforts to find rest for the
soles of its feet was handed back she
began to feel annoyed. and said to the
young man at the window:
"WelI, what's the matter now?"
Write your name on the back,
please"
A friend who deposited in this bank
had indorsed it and told her that she
must indorse it also, but she had over
looked this formality. She went to one
of the little desks against the wall,
wrote her name as directed, and went
back to the window. The teller glanced
at the back, then at the face, and i'm
paled it on a long spike already loaded
with similar sls,s Of paper of varying
size and color. He seized a pile of
greenbaclls with one hand, ran the
thumb of the other hand over a wet
sponge, and counted off a number of
bills; he did it so fast she couldn't tell
just how many. Then he laid the bills
down on the counter, wet his thumb.
and ran them over again, making a
little humping noise every time he
turned up the corner of bill. Then he
showed the bunch through the little
opening under the bars in the window,
The little woman stuffed the bills in
her /pocketbook with long inward
sigh of relief that it was all over, and
went home. When she got there she
counted the bills and found they footed
up sixty dollars. Then she counted
them again with the same result The
draft only called for fifty dollars. She
immediately took car and went back
to the bank. Perhaps, she thought.
this bank clerk had better manners
than he displayed after all, and he
might be supporting a widowed moth
err, so that the loss of ten dollars would
be very serious matter.
She approached the window and SAID
pleasantly:
You made mistake in paying my
draft"
1--WE don't correct any mistakes fter
you leave the bank, +" replied the young
man in tone so frIgid that his former
air had been balmy by comparison.
Very well" said the little woman,
you paid me ten dollars too much, ;"
and walked out.
And the bank clerk said never