Page 58 - Lavender-B-8

He made me write the sum on a slip and sign my name in a book. I no longer knew what I
was doing. The bank swam before my eyes.

‘Is it deposited?’ I asked in a hollow, vibrating voice.

‘It is,’ said the accountant.

‘Then I want to draw a cheque.’

My idea was to draw out six dollars of it for present use. Someone gave me a chequebook
through a wicket and someone else began telling me how to write it out. The people in

the bank had the impression that I was an invalid millionaire. I wrote something on the
cheque and thrust it in at the clerk. He looked at it.

‘What! are you drawing it all out again?’ he asked in surprise. Then I realized that I had
written fifty-six instead of six. I was too far gone to reason now. I had a feeling that it was
impossible to explain the thing. All the clerks had stopped writing to look at me.

Reckless with misery, I made a plunge.

‘Yes, the whole thing.’ Why do you
think the writer
‘You withdraw your money from the bank?’ was behaving this
Just a Minute!
‘Every cent of it.’ way?

‘Are you not going to deposit any more?’ said the clerk, astonished.

‘Never.’

An idiot hope struck me that they might think something had insulted me while I was
writing the cheque and that I had changed my mind. I made a wretched attempt to look
like a man with a fearfully quick temper.

The clerk prepared to pay the money.

‘How will you have it?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘How will you have it?’

‘Oh’—I caught his meaning and answered
without even trying to think—’in fifties.’

invalid: sickly
reckless: careless
made a plunge: made a decision to do
something, especially after thinking about it for a
long time
astonished: greatly surprised
wretched: in a very unhappy or unfortunate state

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