TEXT B

My Bank Account Stephen Leacock

When I go into a bank I get frightened. The clerks frighten me; the desks frighten me; the sight of the money frightens me; everything frightens me. The moment I pass through the doors of a bank and attempt to do business there, I become an irresponsible fool.
I knew this before, but my salary had been raised to fifty dollars a month and I felt that the bank was the only place for it.
So I walked unsteadily in and looked round at the clerks with fear. I had an idea that a person who was about to open an account must necessarily consult the manager.
I went up to a place marked "Accountant." The accountant was a tall, cool devil. The very sight of him frightened me. My voice sounded as if it came from the grave.
"Can I see the manager?" I said, and added solemnly, "alone." I don't know why I said "alone."
"Certainly," said the accountant, and brought him.
The manager was a calm, serious man. I held my fifty-six dollars, pressed together in a ball, in my pocket.
"Are you the manager?" I said. God knows I didn't doubt it.
"Yes," he said.
"Can I see you," I asked, "alone?" I didn't want to say "alone" again, but without this word the question seemed useless.
The manager looked at me with some anxiety. He felt that I had a terrible secret to tell.
"Come in here," he said, and led the way to a private room. He turned the key in the lock.
"We are safe from interruption here," he said. "Sit down."
We both sat down and looked at each other. I found no voice to speak.
"You are one of Pinkerton's detectives, I suppose," he said.
My mysterious manner had made him think that I was a detective. I knew what he was thinking, and it made me worse.
"No, not from Pinkerton's," I said, seeming to mean that I was from a rival agency.
"To tell the truth," I went on, as if someone had urged me to tell lies about it, "I am not a detective at all. I have come to open an account. I intend to keep all my money in this bank."
The manager looked relieved but still serious; he felt sure now that I was a very rich man, perhaps a son of Baron Roth's child.
"A large account, I suppose," he said.
"Fairly large," I whispered. "I intend to place in this bank the sum of fifty-six dollars now and fifty dollars a month regularly."
The manager got up and opened the door. He called to the accountant.
"Mr. Montgomery," he said, unkindly loud, "this gentleman is opening an account. He will place fifty-six dollars in it. Good morning."
I stood up.
A big iron door stood open at the side of the room.
"Good morning," I said, and walked into the safe.
"Come out," said the manager coldly, and showed me the other way.
I went up to the accountant's window and pushed the ball of money at him with a quick, sudden movement as if I were doing a sort of trick.
My face was terribly pale.
"Here," I said, "put it in my account." The sound of my voice seemed to mean, "Let us do this painful thing while we feel that we want to do it."
He took the money and gave it to another clerk.
He made me write the sum on a bit of paper and sign my name in a book. I no longer knew what I was doing. The bank seemed to swim before my eyes.
"Is it in the account?" I asked in a hollow, shaking voice.
"It is," said the accountant.
"Then I want to draw a cheque."
My idea was to draw out six dollars of it for present use. Someone gave me a chequebook and someone else seemed to think that I was a man who owned millions of dollars, but was not feeling very well. I wrote something on the cheque and pushed it towards the clerk. He looked at it.
"What! Are you drawing it all out again?" he asked in surprise. Then I realized that I had written fifty-six dollars instead of six. I was too upset to reason now. I had a feeling that it was impossible to explain the thing. All the clerks had stopped writing to look at me.
Bold and careless in my misery, I made a decision.
"Yes, the whole thing."
"You wish to draw your money out of the bank?"
"Every cent of it."
"Are you not going to put any more in the account?" said the clerk, astonished.
"Never."
A foolish hope came to me that they might think something had insulted me while I was writing the cheque and that I had changed my mind. I made a miserable attempt to look like a man with a fearfully quick temper.
The clerk prepared to pay the money.
"How will you have it?" he said.
"What?"
"How will you have it?"
"Oh" —I understood his meaning and answered without even trying to think—"in fifty-dollar notes."
He gave me a fifty-dollar note.
"And the six?" he asked coldly.
"In six dollar notes," I said.
He gave me six dollars and I rushed out.
As the big door swung behind me I heard the sound of a roar of laughter that went up to the roof of the bank. Since then I use a bank no more. I keep my money in my pocket and my savings in silver dollars in a sock.