One day, at a big dinner, he announced casually that the Directors
had shifted on to him a Natural Curiosity, from England, in the
Accountant line. He was perfectly correct. Mr. Silas Riley,
Accountant, was a MOST curious animal--a long, gawky, rawboned
Yorkshireman, full of the savage self-conceit that blossom's only in
the best county in England. Arrogance was a mild word for the
mental attitude of Mr. S. Riley. He had worked himself up, after
seven years, to a Cashier's position in a Huddersfield Bank; and all
his experience lay among the factories of the North. Perhaps he
would have done better on the Bombay side, where they are happy with
one-half per cent. profits, and money is cheap. He was useless for
Upper India and a wheat Province, where a man wants a large head and
a touch of imagination if he is to turn out a satisfactory balance-
sheet.
He was wonderfully narrow-minded in business, and, being new to the
country, had no notion that Indian banking is totally distinct from
Home work. Like most clever self-made men, he had much simplicity
in his nature; and, somehow or other, had construed the ordinarily
polite terms of his letter of engagement into a belief that the
Directors had chosen him on account of his special and brilliant
talents, and that they set great store by him.
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