No More Learning

You will admit that Reggie had reason to call his new Accountant a
Natural Curiosity. The two men failed to hit it off at all. Riley
considered Reggie a wild, feather-headed idiot, given to Heaven only
knew what dissipation in low places called "Messes," and totally unfit
for the serious and solemn vocation of banking. He could never get
over Reggie's look of youth and "you-be-damned" air; and he couldn't
understand Reggie's friends--clean-built, careless men in the Army--who
rode over to big Sunday breakfasts at the Bank, and told sultry stories
till Riley got up and left the room. Riley was always showing Reggie
how the business ought to be conducted, and Reggie had more than once to
remind him that seven years' limited experience between Huddersfield and
Beverly did not qualify a man to steer a big up-country business. Then
Riley sulked and referred to himself as a pillar of the Bank and a
cherished friend of the Directors, and Reggie tore his hair. If a man's
English subordinates fail him in this country, he comes to a hard time
indeed, for native help has strict limitations. In the winter Riley went
sick for weeks at a time with his lung complaint, and this threw more
work on Reggie. But he preferred it to the everlasting friction when
Riley was well.

One of the Travelling Inspectors of the Bank discovered these collapses
and reported them to the Directors. Now Riley had been foisted on the
Bank by an M. P. , who wanted the support of Riley's father, who, again,
was anxious to get his son out to a warmer climate because of those
lungs. The M. P.
had an interest in the Bank; but one of the Directors
wanted to advance a nominee of his own; and, after Riley's father had
died, he made the rest of the Board see that an Accountant who was sick
for half the year, had better give place to a healthy man. If Riley had
known the real story of his appointment, he might have behaved better;
but knowing nothing, his stretches of sickness alternated with restless,
persistent, meddling irritation of Reggie, and all the hundred ways in
which conceit in a subordinate situation can find play. Reggie used to
call him striking and hair-curling names behind his back as a relief to
his own feelings; but he never abused him to his face, because he said:
"Riley is such a frail beast that half of his loathsome conceit is due
to pains in the chest. "

Late one April, Riley went very sick indeed. The doctor punched him
and thumped him, and told him he would be better before long. Then the
doctor went to Reggie and said:--"Do you know how sick your Accountant
is? " "No! " said Reggie--"The worse the better, confound him! He's a
clacking nuisance when he's well. I'll let you take away the Bank Safe
if you can drug him silent for this hot-weather. "

But the doctor did not laugh--"Man, I'm not joking," he said. "I'll give
him another three months in his bed and a week or so more to die in.
On my honor and reputation that's all the grace he has in this world.
Consumption has hold of him to the marrow. "

Reggie's face changed at once into the face of "Mr. Reginald Burke," and
he answered:--"What can I do?