He had never been in
a London bank before. At first it reminded him of the club, with the
addition of an enormous placard giving the day of the month as a
mystical number--14--and other placards displaying solitary letters of
the alphabet. Then he saw that it was a huge menagerie in which highly
trained young men of assorted sizes and years were confined in stout
cages of wire and mahogany. He stamped straight to a cage with a hole in
it, and threw down the cheque for five hundred pounds--defiantly.
"Next desk, please," said a mouth over a high collar and a green tie,
behind the grating, and a disdainful hand pushed the cheque back towards
Priam.
"Next desk!" repeated Priam, dashed but furious.
"This is the A to M desk," said the mouth.
Then Priam understood the solitary letters, and he rushed, with a new
accession of fury, to the adjoining cage, where another disdainful hand
picked up the cheque and turned it over, with an air of saying, "Fishy,
this!"
And, "It isn't endorsed!" said another mouth over another high collar
and green tie. The second disdainful hand pushed the cheque back again
to Priam, as though it had been a begging circular.
"Oh, if that's all!" said Priam, almost speechless from anger. "Have you
got such a thing as a pen?"
He was behaving in an extremely unreasonable manner.
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