Cashiering

“ That, after all, is what a cashier is for. If he doesn’t fulfil those first duties of his post, why what on earth can be the good of him to anybody in any way?
The two men looked at one another across the counter with a strong inscrutable stare of mutual suspicion. Then Cyril slowly tore up the cheque he had tendered for fifty pounds, filled in another for his real balance of twenty-two, handed it across to the clerk without another word, received the cash in white trembling hands, and went out to his cab again in a turmoil of excitement. ”

“ There you are, sir,’ and he handed the check to the cashier of the Exchange. ‘Just pack up that film and the posters. Building a big transparency advertising it. If I can catch an early train we’ll put it on to-night.’
“‘I cannot deliver the goods on this check, Mr. Carrington,’ said the cashier, politely but firmly.
“‘I’d like to know why you can’t!’ flared up Peter. ‘That check is good as gold, and my aunt has a little fortune in that same bank.’
“‘All right, get someone in New York to indorse it and you can have the goods,’ advised the cashier. ‘It’s no discrimination, Mr. Carrington. ”

“ Some day, when the cashiers of Paris come to a sense of their real value, a cashier will be hardly obtainable for money. Still, certain it is that there are people who are fit for nothing but to be cashiers, just as the bent of a certain order of mind inevitably makes for rascality. But, oh marvel of our civilization! Society rewards virtue with an income of a hundred louis in old age, a dwelling on a second floor, bread sufficient, occasional new bandana handkerchiefs, an elderly wife and her offspring. ”

“ In various ways the special agent found opportunities, even without seeing the books of the bank, of demonstrating to his satisfaction [Pg 150] that the accounts were being juggled. This was particularly true of new deposits. When a cashier is particularly hard pressed he may resort to a manipulation of the accounts of current depositors. The system is the simplest in the world. When a depositor hands in his money, the cashier enters the amount in the pass book of that individual as a receipt. Then, instead of entering the money to the depositor's credit, the cashier puts it into his pocket. ”

“ The girl was there because it happened to be the only portion of the day when she could withdraw unobserved from the house in which she lived, during banking hours, to try her little agitating financial experiment. The cashier was there because the bank had no lunch hour, and because he had just witnessed the most suspicious circumstance that his constantly alert eye had ever beheld. Calm and imperturbable as a bank cashier may appear to the outside public, he is a man under constant strain during business hours. ”

“ The cashier at our Goldstead branch has the misfortune to drop his scoop accidentally when cashing a cheque for his worthy mayor of our select suburb.
A SPORTING CHANCE.
It is generally in the spring that I begin to notice how big my accounts are growing. I don't know why this should be, unless it is because I haven't paid any during the previous year. At any rate you must take my word for it. I have the accounts here.
Then, again, it is a most remarkable fact that whenever one has bills to pay one finds there are other things to be bought. ”

“ If the cashier had stolen millions, there was no occasion for his being in a hurry; whereas the banker, creeping down in the dead of night with cat-like footsteps, for fear of awakening the boy in the ante-room, in order to rifle his own money-safe, had every reason to tremble, to hurry, to hastily withdraw the key, which, slipping along the lock, scratched off the varnish. ”

“ They crossed the street to the bank and went up to the cashier's cage. They knew the cashier well and he smiled at them as Frank pushed the five dollar bill under the grating.
"Want it changed?" he asked.
"We want to know if it's good, first."
The cashier, a sharp-featured, elderly man with spectacles, then took a sharp glance at the bill. He pursed up his lips as he felt the texture of the paper. Then he flicked the bill across to them again.
"Sorry," he said. "You've been stung, boys. It's counterfeit."
"Counterfeit!" exclaimed Frank.
"You aren't the first one who has been fooled. ”

“ When Richard returned the card, Mr. Cashier took up a neat little book, wrote Richard’s name on the cover and made a note inside the book, which said that Richard had one dollar in the bank. Then he gave him the book, together with a pretty nickel home-safe, such as savings banks keep for children who save pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and, sometimes, even dollars.
“This is a home-savings bank,” explained Mr. Cashier. “Your dollar which you handed through the window will grow in two ways. We will make it grow by paying you interest. You may make it grow by adding more money to it. ”

“ I urged. "I'd like nothing so well as the lullaby you sang to the babies."
But she shook her head again. "That's their song," she said. "You were specially privileged to hear it at all. But I can't do it for company. Come, Arthur—please."
So the Cashier sang. The Philosopher and I found it necessary to avoid each other's eyes as he did it. The Cashier could roar 'The Toreador,' no doubt of that. The voice of the bull of Bashan would have been as the summer wind in the trees beside it. ”

“ The cashier of a bank is usually the individual who opens the mail, and many of these have been known to cash personal checks and destroy them when they came in for collection, charging the amount to some account where it might temporarily be hidden. To determine whether or not these personal checks were being juggled by the cashier Gard, as the grocer's bookkeeper, found a pretext to send to the bank for a record of some personal checks of Compton's which he had handled a few days earlier. ”

“ Giving full effect to the usage proved, it only shows that a cashier may borrow money of the other banks, in the settlement of balances through the clearing-house, and that he may sign the checks given for the same, and that he may buy and sell New York funds, that is, he may buy for use in redeeming their bills, and he may sell the same when they have an excess beyond what is necessary for that purpose ”

“ The cashier of that firm, a fat little man, with a face like a dumpling and a nose like a cherry, lived, as it were, in a state of perpetual amazement in regard to these remittances. They came regularly, from apparently nowhere, were acknowledged to nobody, and amounted, in the course of time, to many thousands. This firm had, some years previously, lost a fine vessel. She was named the Brilliant; had sailed for the South Sea islands with a rich cargo, and was never more heard of. The fat cashier knew the loss sustained by this vessel to a penny. ”

“ The existence of the distinct English word cash may probably have affected the form of the corruption before us. This word had a European origin from It. cassa, French caisse, 'the money-chest': this word in book-keeping having given name to the heading of account under which actual disbursements of coin were entered (see Wedgwood and N.E.D. s.v.) . In Minsheu (2nd ed. 1627) the present sense of the word is not attained. He only gives "a tradesman's Cash, or Counter to keepe money in."
1510.—"They have also another coin called cas, 16 of which go to a tare of silver."—Varthema, 130. ”

“ Special reference to the by-laws of the bank is unnecessary, as it is not pretended that they confer any such power upon the cashier, and there is not a particle of evidence that the directors, directly or indirectly, ever gave him any such power.
Before attempting to answer the inquiry, what are the usual and ordinary duties of a cashier, it becomes necessary to look somewhat more closely at the circumstances which attended the transaction at the time the checks were certified. None of the checks were signed by the drawers or certified by the cashier in the banking-house of the defendants. ”

“ When payment was demanded of a bank on its notes, and not given, the cashier was to endorse upon it "payment demanded" with the date; then it bore interest at six per cent. until paid in money of the United States. The cashier must keep a book of record of such refusals, and the person who demanded payment might demand an opportunity to see this book, to verify the entry of his own demand, and might sign an attestation of it. If the cashier refused to do these things, the penalty was ten per cent. ”

“ What he wanted was to get the approach to the bank, the entrance and going back to the cashier. That part of the negative was under-timed, said the voice. And would the cashier make a display of gold behind the wicket, so that the camera could register it through the window? The cashier thought that he could. "Just stack it up good and high," directed the voice. "The more the better. And clear the bank—have the clerks out, and everything as near as possible to what it was the other day. And you take up the same position. The scene ends where Ramon comes back and grabs you. ”

“ The cashier was obliging, and in as much as gossip was usually sparse in that community went on the while chatting with the president of the institution, who had just come in.
"True as text," said the cashier, while Lute Brown waited. "She wouldn't take no check. She was plum resolved to have her money in cash—and she aims to hire a mule and start out soon to-morrow morning toting it along with her." ”

“ If the cashier is possessed of an imagination or of a fervid temperament; if, as will sometimes happen to the most complete cashier, he loves his wife, and that wife grows tired of her lot, has ambitions, or merely some vanity in her composition, the cashier is undone. Search the chronicles of the counting-house. You will not find a single instance of a cashier attaining a position, as it is called. ”

“ The notes of the new Bank of England and of the Lombard Street money-changers gave also considerable relief; but the whole amount of notes and coin did not suffice to carry on the business of the nation. Numbers of work-people of all kinds were turned off because their employers had not money to pay them with. The shopkeepers could not afford to give credit to every one, and, as their trade stagnated in consequence, they were compelled to sacrifice their commodities to raise the necessary sums to satisfy their own creditors. ”

“ We are very much inclined to think that the endorsement of notes, like the present, for the use of the bank, falls within the ordinary duties and rights belonging to the cashier of the bank, at least if his office be like that of similar institutions, and his rights and duties are not otherwise restricted. The cashier is usually intrusted with all the funds of the bank, in cash, notes, bills, &c. ”

“ But a cashier, the offspring of modern commerce, is, as stated by Baron Parke of bill brokers, 'not a character known to the law with certain prescribed duties, but his employment is one that depends entirely on the course of dealing. ”

“ Again, if a cashier is shown to have usually or frequently pledged in writing the credit of the bank in the usual course of business, with the knowledge of the bank, and such is shown to be the usage of other banks, as before stated, it is evidence from which the jury may infer that he is authorized to pledge that credit in all transactions authorized by the charter, and which could lawfully be intrusted to a cashier. ”

“ The powers of the cashier of a bank are such as are incident to, and implied in, his official character, as generally understood, as cash keeper, cash receiver, or payer, as negotiator and correspondent for the corporation, or as agent for various acts that are necessary and appropriate to the functions of such an officer, and inseparable from the operations of the bank ”

“ Possibly the cashier accedes to this proposition, but more frequently, if he be a cautious and circumspect man, he uses the broker’s point in a different way. He has possibly seen the broker grow rich within a few years and envies him. Here is a tempting opportunity to make a handsome turn, for his salary{478} is comparatively small, and he could put a few thousand dollars to exceedingly good use. It may be, then, that he borrows from a friend, or draws upon his own savings for money which he secretly deposits as margin with some stock firm and buys two hundred Erie. ”

“ After all, most people look on the cashier of a bank as a sort of human slot-machine. You put in your cheque, and out comes money. It is no affair of yours whether life is treating the machine well or ill that day.
The hours dragged slowly by till five o'clock struck, and the cashier, putting on his coat and hat, passed silently out through the swing doors. He walked listlessly. He was evidently tired out.
Mike shut his ledger with a vicious bang, and went across to find Psmith. He was glad the day was over.
20. Concerning a Cheque
Things never happen quite as one expects them to. ”

“ It may do for my collection of Improbabilities."
"Well, I met the cashier of the Savings Bank up there—he's been with the bank nearly thirty years and he told me the story. It seems one noon, about twenty years ago, while he was alone in the bank, a little boy of seven or eight years of age came in, and said he wanted to deposit some money. The cashier asked him how much he had, thinking, of course, that he'd hand out a dollar or two. The boy put a packet wrapped in newspaper on the counter, and by Jove! if there wasn't something over five thousand dollars, in hundred-dollar greenbacks! ”