Arthur Train

“ Suppose Miss Wiggin, or even Mr. Tutt, should happen to get to the office ahead of him, open the envelope, check off the vouchers against the statement, and discover the second check for one hundred and twenty dollars, with the forged indorsement? Jail for him! Worse than that the look of sadness in Mr. Tutt’s eyes! He could not chance it. He must get that check from the bank and destroy it before it could be returned to his employer. ”

“ I’d rather lose my money than my belief in human nature.”
“Then why do you get into this stew every month?” asked Miss Wiggin.
“Because you insist that I shall do so, my dear!” he lamented.
“Pooh!” remarked Tutt, laying down his cup and lighting a cigarette. “He knows well enough that there’s a point where any man will yield to temptation, and that everybody—including banks—makes mistakes! So he tries to add up his figures and simply finds he can’t! He’s just lazy, that’s all!” ”

“ He had forfeited the dearest blessing life had to offer—a home of his own hallowed by the love of a wife and children. If only he had had a child! He laughed. Why, it would be old enough to have children of its own by that time. ”

“ It demands only accuracy, which involves only the ability to add. Yet when a professional man keeps his own accounts, his books will almost inevitably reveal inaccuracies in addition. His check book refuses to synchronize with the bank balance. Both can’t be right, but his own error is lost in a mass of detail and, after poring over his accounts for an hour without result, he throws up his hands in despair, concludes that the bank is probably right, and accepts its figures, although—as some of us know—banks do sometimes make mistakes. ”

“ A paper crackled and a snicker eddied softly from where Willie lurked at the office rail, and he could hear Miss Sondheim’s typewriter clicking—“tut—tut—Tutt & Tutt—tut-a-tut-tut—Tutt & Tutt!” And there was old Scraggs, the scrivener, perched on his high stool in the cage. Funny dried up old man! “Tut-a-tut-tut—Tutt & Tutt!” went Miss Sondheim’s machine. He moved uneasily and glanced through the door at Mr. Tutt. The old man was gazing reproachfully at him, elbows on the desk in front of him, his chin on his hands. ”

“ Tutt sipped the tea handed him by Miss Wiggin, and then fumbled in the long coffin-shaped box for a stogy.
“You haven’t enough faith,” he asserted, “in either the honesty or the accuracy of mankind. Therefore you make me spend hours every month going over my check books, comparing the cancelled vouchers with the bank statements, and trying to make them conform—and they never have yet—in thirty-seven years! They never will either!”
“Not so long as you draw checks without entering them on your stubs, or forget to put down the amounts!” she retorted. “A child could rob you!” ”

“ Tutt, who, in return, had a great pity for the old fellow’s moral struggles and a whimsical appreciation of the influence the coat seemed to exert over him.
Whenever the scrivener was unaccountably absent, Mr. Tutt would glance into the cage and, if the old fur coat were not there, would remark reassuringly, “Scraggs is all right. He’s got his coat!” ”

“ Tutt. “I could add up the figures on my counterfoils perfectly well if I wanted to—and if there were any. I can add as well as you can, Tutt! And anyhow, they use adding-machines in the banks. Machines don’t—can’t—make mistakes! I never heard of a bank making an error yet, in all the thirty-seven years——”
“You wouldn’t know it if they had,” retorted his partner. “You acknowledge you never yet succeeded in balancing your own check book. ”

“ Mr. Tutt had signed the checks and handed them to him on his way out of the office, and now the scrivener kept doggedly on at his monthly task of placing each one with its accompanying bill in a properly addressed stamped envelope. There were a lot of them, and everybody had left the office, as he had intended that they should, long before he finished. Mr. Gill was coming at half-past five with the case of Teague and Teague, and although Scraggs knew that it was impossible for him to pay for it, he nevertheless did not wish to lose his hold on the bootlegger, who, after all, was an old friend. ”

“ It wasn’t possible! Its system of recording and balancing was automatic and mechanically perfect. The Utopia Trust Company would not err, even if it could not forgive. But where was the check?
“Who was that fellow that came in?” asked Tutt of Bonnie, as the accountant left his cage and limped to the door.
“That is Scraggs’ private bootlegger,” Mr. Doon informed him. “And,” he elevated his nose slightly in the direction of the empty cage, “I should say that he was probably a good one!”
VI Scraggs’ anxieties did not abate by reason of the fact that he no longer feared being blackmailed by Gill. ”

“ He could indorse Watts’ name on the back of the check and give it to Gill in payment for the whiskey. The bootlegger could, of course, cash it on the strength of his own indorsement. He, Scraggs, would alter the stub—mark it “cancelled” or “void.” At the end of the month he could abstract the check itself from among those returned from the bank without Mr. Tutt being any the wiser. There would be nothing to show that any such check had ever been issued! ”

“ Gill saw it.
“Listen,” said the bootlegger. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll slip you a sample pint right now for nothing. And then, in case you decide you’d like a case, I’ll be around later in my car—say at half-past five—with the goods. Anyhow I’ll drop in here just to find out. If you don’t want anything, it’ll be all right. No feeling at all!”
He had backed Scraggs into a corner, and, before the scrivener quite realized it, had forced a small flat bottle into his not unwilling hands. A case? No! ”

“ The only possibility of detection lay in the consequent failure of Mr. Tutt’s balance to agree with that of the bank—but this could be disregarded, since the two never balanced. Checks were always turning up which Mr. Tutt had forgotten entirely. The old lawyer rarely looked over his returned vouchers, but, should he do so, and even should he notice the second Watts check indorsed and cashed by Mr. Gill, there would be nothing to arouse his suspicions, since the signature would be genuine. ”

“ Accordingly, he left the coat on its peg and, having locked the door of the cage, put the key in his pocket, and fixing his eye severely upon Willie Toothaker said: “Don’t you dare go out until I come back!”
“Don’t you worry ’bout me!” retorted Willie. “I can take care of myself all right—and a good deal better’n some. Have you got Mr. Tutt’s checks ready for him to sign?”
Now it so happened that the scrivener had been engaged in making out Mr. Tutt’s personal checks at the very moment he had looked at the clock, and that they were not quite done.
Scraggs therefore did not reply. ”

“ A short, thick-set woman in dingy black, holding a baby, was standing just inside the threshold. She gave the appearance of having on a large wardrobe of petticoats. A scrubwoman probably! They were apt to come to Mr. Tutt if they got into difficulties. ”