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Peter: a novel of which he is not the hero By: Francis Hopkinson Smith (1838-1915) |
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A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero By F. Hopkinson Smith
CHAPTER I
Peter was still poring over his ledger one dark afternoon in December,
his bald head glistening like a huge ostrich egg under the flare of the
overhead gas jets, when Patrick, the night watchman, catching sight of
my face peering through the outer grating, opened the door of the Bank. The sight so late in the day was an unusual one, for in all the years
that I have called at the Bank ten, now no, eleven since we first knew
each other Peter had seldom failed to be ready for our walk uptown when
the old moon faced clock high up on the wall above the stove pointed at
four. "I thought there was something up!" I cried. "What is it, Peter balance
wrong?" He did not answer, only waved his hand in reply, his bushy gray eyebrows
moving slowly, like two shutters that opened and closed, as he scanned
the lines of figures up and down, his long pen gripped tight between his
thin, straight lips, as a dog carries a bone. I never interrupt him when his brain is nosing about like this; it is
better to keep still and let him ferret it out. So I sat down outside
the curved rail with its wooden slats backed by faded green curtains,
close to the big stove screened off at the end of the long room, fixed
one eye on the moon face and the other on the ostrich egg, and waited. There are no such banks at the present time were no others then, and
this story begins not so very many years' ago A queer, out of date,
mouldy old barn of a bank, you would say, this Exeter for an
institution wielding its influence. Not a coat of paint for half a
century; not a brushful of whitewash for goodness knows how much longer.
As for the floor, it still showed the gullies and grooves, with here
and there a sturdy knot sticking up like a nut on a boiler, marking the
track of countless impatient depositors and countless anxious borrowers,
it may be, who had lock stepped one behind the other for fifty years
or more, in their journey from the outer door to the windows where the
Peters of the old days, and the Peter of the present, presided over the
funds entrusted to their care. Well enough in its day, you might have said, with a shrug, as you looked
over its forlorn interior. Well enough in its day! Why, man, old John
Astor, James Beekman, Rhinelander Stewart, Moses Grinnell, and a lot of
just such worthies men whose word was as good as their notes and
whose notes were often better than the Government's, presided over its
destinies, and helped to stuff the old fashioned vault with wads of
gilt edged securities millions in value if you did but know it and
making it what it is to day. If you don't believe the first part of my
statement, you've only to fumble among the heap of dusty ledgers piled
on top of the dusty shelves; and if you doubt the latter part, then try
to buy some of the stock and see what you have to pay for it. Although
the gas was turned off in the directors' room, I could still see
from where I sat the very mahogany table under which these same
ruffle shirted, watch fobbed, snuff taking old fellows tucked their
legs when they decided on who should and who should not share the bank's
confidence. And the side walls and surroundings were none the less shabby and quite
as dilapidated. Even the windows had long since given up the fight
to maintain a decent amount of light, and as for the grated opening
protected by iron shutters which would have had barely room to swing
themselves clear of the building next door, no Patrick past or present
had ever dared loosen their bolts for a peep even an inch wide into the
canyon below, so gruesome was the collection of old shoes, tin cans,
broken bottles and battered hats which successive generations had
hurried into the narrow un get at able space that lay between the two
structures. Indeed the only thing inside or out of this time worn building which the
most fertile of imaginations could consider as being at all up to date
was the clock... Continue reading book >>
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Fiction |
Literature |
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