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Tully would know right off that a man could have no respectable reason for borrowing five dollars on Thursday. There remained old Metzeger who worked silently all day over a set of giant ledgers, interminably beautifying their pages with his meticulous figures.
Old Metzeger said "Good morning!" to him affectionately for Metzeger and once he detected Tully staring at him through the enlarging glasses as if in an effort to read his very soul. But he knew his soul was not to be read by such as Tully.
Old Metzeger was deep in a dream of odd numerals. The half-dozen other clerks wrought at tasks not too absorbing to prevent frequent glances at the clock on the wall. Tully, the chief clerk, marred the familiarity of the hour by approaching Bean's desk. He walked lightly. Tully always walked as if he felt himself to be on dangerously thin ice. He might get safely across; then again he mightn't.
If only they would tell him something "good." Little he cared for the twenty dollars. He could get along by borrowing seventeen-seventy-nine from Metzeger. The voice still murmured. Only the well-fitting doors prevented Bean from hearing something that would have been of interest to him. "That you, Ed?" the Countess was saying. "Listen here.
A long time from across his typewriter he studied old Metzeger, tall, angular, his shoulders lovingly rounded above one of the ledgers, a green shade pulled well over his eyes, perhaps to conceal the too-flagrant love-light that shone there for his figures. Napoleon had won most of his battles in his tent. Bean arose, moved toward the other and spoke in clear, cool tones. "Mr.
It gave him a chance to say that if people would only go to a dentist once every three months Then he remembered that Tully was inside. He wouldn't make any excuse at all. "Going out a few minutes," he explained to old Metzeger as he swiftly changed from his office coat and adjusted the new straw hat. Bulger glanced up from his machine, winked at him and shaped a word with his able mouth.
Metzeger replaced three pennies in a pocket, and Bean moved off with the sum he had demanded, feeling almost as once he might have felt after Marengo. It must be true! He couldn't have done the thing yesterday. He omitted his visit to the dog that day and loitered for an hour in a second-hand bookshop he had often passed.
True, Bean had once heard Bulger fail interestingly to borrow five dollars of Metzeger until Saturday noon, but a flash of true Napoleonic genius now enabled him to see precisely why Bulger had not succeeded. Metzeger lived for numerals, for columned digits alone. He carried thousands of them in his head and apparently little else.
Once he had written it $398,973.87, with a half-formed idea of showing it to old Metzeger. As he was going out Tully trod lightly over a sheet of very thin ice and accosted him. "The market was not discouraging to-day," said Tully genially. "'S good time to buy heavily in margins," said Bean. "Yes, sir," said Tully respectfully. In the street he chanted "four hundred thousand dollars" to himself.
He glared at Bulger, at old Metzeger, at the other clerks, and especially at Tully. Tully looked uncomfortable. He wasn't a gazelle after all. He was a startled fawn. "Telephone for " began the office boy humourist, but Bean was out of hearing in the direction of the telephone booth before the latest mot could be delivered.
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