No More Learning

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? "

"Nothing," said the doctor. "For all practical purposes the man is dead
already. Keep him quiet and cheerful and tell him he's going to recover.
That's all. I'll look after him to the end, of course. "

The doctor went away, and Reggie sat down to open the evening mail.

His first letter was one from the Directors, intimating for his
information that Mr. Riley was to resign, under a month's notice, by the
terms of his agreement, telling Reggie that their letter to Riley would
follow and advising Reggie of the coming of a new Accountant, a man whom
Reggie knew and liked.
Reggie lit a cheroot, and, before he had finished smoking, he had
sketched the outline of a fraud. He put away--"burked"--the Directors
letter, and went in to talk to Riley, who was as ungracious as usual,
and fretting himself over the way the bank would run during his illness.
He never thought of the extra work on Reggie's shoulders, but solely of
the damage to his own prospects of advancement. Then Reggie assured him
that everything would be well, and that he, Reggie, would confer with
Riley daily on the management of the Bank. Riley was a little soothed,
but he hinted in as many words that he did not think much of Reggie's
business capacity.

Reggie was humble. And he had letters in his desk from the Directors
that a Gilbarte or a Hardie might have been proud of!

The days passed in the big darkened house, and the Directors' letter of
dismissal to Riley came and was put away by Reggie, who, every evening,
brought the books to Riley's room, and showed him what had been going
forward, while Riley snarled. Reggie did his best to make statements
pleasing to Riley, but the Accountant was sure that the Bank was going
to rack and ruin without him. In June, as the lying in bed told on his
spirit, he asked whether his absence had been noted by the Directors,
and Reggie said that they had written most sympathetic letters, hoping
that he would be able to resume his valuable services before long. He
showed Riley the letters: and Riley said that the Directors ought to
have written to him direct.

A few days later, Reggie opened Riley's mail in the half-light of the
room, and gave him the sheet--not the envelope--of a letter to Riley
from the Directors. Riley said he would thank Reggie not to interfere
with his private papers, specially as Reggie knew he was too weak to
open his own letters. Reggie apologized.

Then Riley's mood changed, and he lectured Reggie on his evil ways:
his horses and his bad friends. "Of course, lying here on my back, Mr.