No More Learning

Which was just as good as though she had been everything that
he had imagined.

But the question is, what claim will Mrs. Reiver have to the credit of
Moriarty's salvation, when her day of reckoning comes?




A BANK FRAUD.

He drank strong waters and his speech was coarse;
He purchased raiment and forebore to pay;
He struck a trusting junior with a horse,
And won Gymkhanas in a doubtful way.

Then, 'twixt a vice and folly, turned aside
To do good deeds and straight to cloak them, lied.
--THE MESS ROOM.

If Reggie Burke were in India now, he would resent this tale being told;
but as he is in Hong-Kong and won't see it, the telling is safe. He was
the man who worked the big fraud on the Sind and Sialkote Bank. He was
manager of an up-country Branch, and a sound practical man with a large
experience of native loan and insurance work. He could combine the
frivolities of ordinary life with his work, and yet do well. Reggie
Burke rode anything that would let him get up, danced as neatly as he
rode, and was wanted for every sort of amusement in the Station.

As he said himself, and as many men found out rather to their surprise,
there were two Burkes, both very much at your service.

"Reggie Burke," between four and ten, ready for anything from a
hot-weather gymkhana to a riding-picnic; and, between ten and four, "Mr.
Reginald Burke, Manager of the Sind and Sialkote Branch Bank.
" You might
play polo with him one afternoon and hear him express his opinions when
a man crossed; and you might call on him next morning to raise a
two-thousand rupee loan on a five hundred pound insurance-policy, eighty
pounds paid in premiums. He would recognize you, but you would have some
trouble in recognizing him.

The Directors of the Bank--it had its headquarters in Calcutta and its
General Manager's word carried weight with the Government--picked their
men well. They had tested Reggie up to a fairly severe breaking-strain.
They trusted him just as much as Directors ever trust Managers. You must
see for yourself whether their trust was misplaced.

Reggie's Branch was in a big Station, and worked with the usual
staff--one Manager, one Accountant, both English, a Cashier, and a horde
of native clerks; besides the Police patrol at nights outside.

The bulk of its work, for it was in a thriving district, was hoondi and
accommodation of all kinds. A fool has no grip of this sort of business;
and a clever man who does not go about among his clients, and know more
than a little of their affairs, is worse than a fool.

Reggie was young-looking, clean-shaved, with a twinkle in his eye, and
a head that nothing short of a gallon of the Gunners' Madeira could make
any impression on.

One day, at a big dinner, he announced casually that the Directors had
shifted on to him a Natural Curiosity, from England, in the Accountant
line. He was perfectly correct. Mr. Silas Riley, Accountant, was a MOST
curious animal--a long, gawky, rawboned Yorkshireman, full of the savage
self-conceit that blossoms only in the best county in England. Arrogance
was a mild word for the mental attitude of Mr. S.