those shallow in judgment, or weak in courage…and wise men, at weak times.
Francis Bacon
Essays , “Of Boldness,” 1625
E MMA arrived on the first Monday in January in Hayward-on-Ames, where she registered at the hotel down the street from the bank so she’d have a place to change. There, she went directly to her hotel room, where she padded herself out in a pillow, dropped a huge dress over herself that she’d borrowed from the church collection for the needy, tucked her light-colored hair up under a gray wig, then slipped out the hotel’s service entrance: off to the bank on behalf of Mr. Stuart Agsyarth, her employer, who had sent her along with all the proper paperwork to withdraw what was to be her retirement benefit—fifty-six pounds eight shillings—then close out his account for him. For fun, she even signed a jolly good facsimile of the viscount’s own signature, except for the G and Y, as a kind of joke.
The whole thing didn’t go quite as smoothly as expected, however. At the bank, first the teller on the other side of the grid told her, Fine, thank you, come back tomorrow. He’d have the money ready then.
What? she asked. No, no, this wasn’t the way a bank worked.
He claimed she was missing a paper.
No, she wasn’t. Which one? she demanded.
Oh. Well. Yes. He reconsidered. It was simply that the withdrawal had to be put on a list of transactions to be run, by telegraph, through the parent bank in York. Some sort of preliminary approval. Again, he said, come back in the morning.
What a lot of bumfodder. No, sir, she told him, she wasn’t waiting till any morning beyond this one, thank you. She was having the money today.
Looking a little uneasy, he said, Well, in that case. He could put in a request of urgency. He could perhaps have it within a few hours.
No, she wasn’t waiting any “few hours” either. It was her money. Emma knew for a fact, from having reviewed dozens of such transactions in the books in York, that she had all the right paperwork, and that it entitled her to her money immediately. What, for goodness sake, was the world coming to? she thought. How did anyone of less resolve than herself battle a simple bank teller these days?
He hemmed. He hawed. He consulted. She did the same, loudly asking the tall, long-faced fellow at the window next to hers if he put up with such shenanigans. When Emma turned to ask a similar question of the nosy, balding young man who stood behind her, looking over her shoulder, the teller interrupted, actually threatening to have her removed.
“I beg your pardon?” she said, leaning into his grid. “If you lay one hand on me, I’ll call the sheriff myself.”
“Sheriff?” he said, his enlarged eyes—he wore thick spectacles—blinking behind their glass lenses. He frowneddeeply, in at least two magnifications, then said, “No one is supposed to call the sheriff.”
Well, good, she decided. Come to think of it, she didn’t want the sheriff either. Bring on the bank’s governor.
Local branches didn’t have a governor, it turned out. Then bring on whoever was in charge, she insisted. Oh, dear, this popped up both heads from behind the two narrow wooden cubicles on the far side of the customer counter. Two more men, both tall, one with a thin face that bore a droopy mustache, the other with heavy-boned features on which hung pouchy cheeks, came around their cubicles toward her.
It took another half an hour, but in the end Emma battled three moronic men at the little country branch of the York bank, all of whom for some reason thought they could brush off a gray-wigged old lady until they were in the mood to give her her money; and won. She rode to victory on the coattails of the morning postman who arrived with a handful of business for them—the pouchy-cheeked man immediately started going through the bank’s mail, as if to emphasize how unimportant was the present discussion. Happily, though, the postman took over on her behalf.
Francis Bacon
Essays , “Of Boldness,” 1625
E MMA arrived on the first Monday in January in Hayward-on-Ames, where she registered at the hotel down the street from the bank so she’d have a place to change. There, she went directly to her hotel room, where she padded herself out in a pillow, dropped a huge dress over herself that she’d borrowed from the church collection for the needy, tucked her light-colored hair up under a gray wig, then slipped out the hotel’s service entrance: off to the bank on behalf of Mr. Stuart Agsyarth, her employer, who had sent her along with all the proper paperwork to withdraw what was to be her retirement benefit—fifty-six pounds eight shillings—then close out his account for him. For fun, she even signed a jolly good facsimile of the viscount’s own signature, except for the G and Y, as a kind of joke.
The whole thing didn’t go quite as smoothly as expected, however. At the bank, first the teller on the other side of the grid told her, Fine, thank you, come back tomorrow. He’d have the money ready then.
What? she asked. No, no, this wasn’t the way a bank worked.
He claimed she was missing a paper.
No, she wasn’t. Which one? she demanded.
Oh. Well. Yes. He reconsidered. It was simply that the withdrawal had to be put on a list of transactions to be run, by telegraph, through the parent bank in York. Some sort of preliminary approval. Again, he said, come back in the morning.
What a lot of bumfodder. No, sir, she told him, she wasn’t waiting till any morning beyond this one, thank you. She was having the money today.
Looking a little uneasy, he said, Well, in that case. He could put in a request of urgency. He could perhaps have it within a few hours.
No, she wasn’t waiting any “few hours” either. It was her money. Emma knew for a fact, from having reviewed dozens of such transactions in the books in York, that she had all the right paperwork, and that it entitled her to her money immediately. What, for goodness sake, was the world coming to? she thought. How did anyone of less resolve than herself battle a simple bank teller these days?
He hemmed. He hawed. He consulted. She did the same, loudly asking the tall, long-faced fellow at the window next to hers if he put up with such shenanigans. When Emma turned to ask a similar question of the nosy, balding young man who stood behind her, looking over her shoulder, the teller interrupted, actually threatening to have her removed.
“I beg your pardon?” she said, leaning into his grid. “If you lay one hand on me, I’ll call the sheriff myself.”
“Sheriff?” he said, his enlarged eyes—he wore thick spectacles—blinking behind their glass lenses. He frowneddeeply, in at least two magnifications, then said, “No one is supposed to call the sheriff.”
Well, good, she decided. Come to think of it, she didn’t want the sheriff either. Bring on the bank’s governor.
Local branches didn’t have a governor, it turned out. Then bring on whoever was in charge, she insisted. Oh, dear, this popped up both heads from behind the two narrow wooden cubicles on the far side of the customer counter. Two more men, both tall, one with a thin face that bore a droopy mustache, the other with heavy-boned features on which hung pouchy cheeks, came around their cubicles toward her.
It took another half an hour, but in the end Emma battled three moronic men at the little country branch of the York bank, all of whom for some reason thought they could brush off a gray-wigged old lady until they were in the mood to give her her money; and won. She rode to victory on the coattails of the morning postman who arrived with a handful of business for them—the pouchy-cheeked man immediately started going through the bank’s mail, as if to emphasize how unimportant was the present discussion. Happily, though, the postman took over on her behalf.
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