Said one
Chinaman to another in pidgin-Japanese: 'It is shut,' and went away. The
noise of barring up continued, the rain fell, and the notice stared down
the wet street. That was all. There must have been two or three men
passing by to whom the announcement meant the loss of every penny of
their savings - comforting knowledge to digest after tiffin. In London,
of course, the failure would not mean so much; there are many banks in
the City, and people would have had warning. Here banks are few, people
are dependent on them, and this news came out of the sea unheralded, an
evil born with all its teeth.
After the crash of a bursting shell every one who can picks himself up,
brushes the dirt off his uniform, and tries to make a joke of it. Then
some one whips a handkerchief round his hand - a splinter has torn
it - and another finds warm streaks running down his forehead. Then a
man, overlooked till now and past help, groans to the death. Everybody
perceives with a start that this is no time for laughter, and the dead
and wounded are attended to.
Even so at the Overseas Club when the men got out of office. The brokers
had told them the news. In filed the English, and Americans, and
Germans, and French, and 'Here's a pretty mess!' they said one and all.
Many of them were hit, but, like good men, they did not say how
severely.
'Ah!' said a little P. and O. official, wagging his head sagaciously (he
had lost a thousand dollars since noon), 'it's all right now. They're
trying to make the best of it. In three or four days we shall hear more
about it. I meant to draw my money just before I went down coast,
but - - ' Curiously enough, it was the same story throughout the Club.
Everybody had intended to withdraw, and nearly everybody had - not done
so. The manager of a bank which had not failed was explaining how, in
his opinion, the crash had come about. This was also very human. It
helped none. Entered a lean American, throwing back his waterproof all
dripping with the rain; his face was calm and peaceful. 'Boy, whisky and
soda,' he said.
'How much haf you losd?' said a Teuton bluntly. 'Eight-fifty,' replied
the son of George Washington sweetly. 'Don't see how that prevents me
having a drink. My glass, sirr.' He continued an interrupted whistling
of 'I owe ten dollars to O'Grady' (which he very probably did), and his
countenance departed not from its serenity. If there is anything that
one loves an American for it is the way he stands certain kinds of
punishment. An Englishman and a heavy loser was being chaffed by a
Scotchman whose account at the Japan end of the line had been a trifle
overdrawn. True, he would lose in England, but the thought of the few
dollars saved here cheered him.
More men entered, sat down by tables, stood in groups, or remained
apart by themselves, thinking with knit brows. One must think quickly
when one's bills are falling due. The murmur of voices thickened, and
there was no rumbling in the skittle alley to interrupt it. Everybody
knows everybody else at the Overseas Club, and everybody sympathises. A
man passed stiffly and some one of a group turned to ask lightly, 'Hit,
old man?' 'Like hell,' he said, and went on biting his unlit cigar.
Another man was telling, slowly and somewhat bitterly, how he had
expected one of his children to join him out here, and how the passage
had been paid with a draft on the O.B.C. But now ... There, ladies and
gentlemen, is where it hurts, this little suspension out here. It
destroys plans, pretty ones hoped for and prayed over, maybe for years;
it knocks pleasant domestic arrangements galleywest over and above all
the mere ruin that it causes. The curious thing in the talk was that
there was no abuse of the bank. The men were in the Eastern trade
themselves and they knew. It was the Yokohama manager and the clerks
thrown out of employment (connection with a broken bank, by the way,
goes far to ruin a young man's prospects) for whom they were sorry.
'We're doing ourselves well this year,' said a wit grimly. 'One
free-shooting case, one thundering libel case, and a bank smash. Showing
off pretty before the globe-trotters, aren't we?'
'Gad, think of the chaps at sea with letters of credit. Eh? They'll land
and get the best rooms at the hotels and find they're penniless,' said
another.
'Never mind the globe-trotters,' said a third. 'Look nearer home. This
does for so-and-so, and so-and-so, and so-and-so, all old men; and every
penny of theirs goes.' Poor devils!'
'That reminds me of some one else,' said yet another voice, 'His
wife's at home, too. Whew!' and he whistled drearily. So did the tide of
voices run on till men got to talking over the chances of a dividend,
'They went to the Bank of England,' drawled an American, 'and the Bank
of England let them down; said their securities weren't good enough.'
'Great Scott!' - a hand came down on a table to emphasise the remark - 'I
sailed half way up the Mediterranean once with a Bank of England
director; wish I'd tipped him over the rail and lowered him a boat on
his own security - if it was good enough.'
'Baring's goes. The O.B.C. don't,' replied the American, blowing smoke
through his nose.
