What difference would it make to these heartless plutocrats and
overlords when he told them that his wife was ill and that he could
not leave his home until the doctor had come to reassure him? What did
they know about connubial happiness and connubial obligations? They
would stare at him coldly--or perhaps laugh in his face--and say that
the fate of a great banking institution could not be put in jeopardy
just because Mrs. Bingle happened to be critically ill. Mr. Bingle,
for the first time in his life, began to appreciate his own
importance. He began to realise that in all likelihood the bank would
go to pieces as the result of his failure to appear at his desk at the
appointed minute. He recalled having seen the first vice-president and
the cashier in close conversation as he slunk through the little
passage behind the latter's office, and he remembered also with
sickening clearness that they stopped talking and stared at him as he
hurried by. And, now that he thought of it, the first vice-president
had smiled pleasantly and had said something that sounded like "good
morning, Mr.
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