yself with the signatures
and business customs and qualifications of twice the former number
of your customers, and my liability to error has also become greater
in like ratio. But I have committed no errors, which argues that I
have kept up an equal strain of care. This has made demands upon my
brain and my bodily strength, which I think should be requited for.

"2. I, like each of you, will one day reach an age when the body and
mind will no longer be able to provide for themselves. But between
us, should we continue our present relations, there would be this
vital difference: You would have made an accumulation of wealth that
would be sufficient for your wants, while I would be poor in spite
of the fact that I labored with you, and next to yourselves did the
most to protect your interests. In view of my approaching
incompetence (no matter how far off it is), I am working at a
disadvantage. Would it not be right to enable me to protect myself
from this disadvantage?

"3. While you pay me a price for my labor and for my skill as an
_expert_, do you compensate me for the trials you put upon my
probity? You pay me for what I do, but do you reward me for what I
_might_, but do _not_ do? Is what I do _not_ do a marketable
quantity? I think that it is. To prove it, inquire of those whose
servants have behaved ill, whether they would not have paid
something to have forestalled their dishonesty.

"There is a bad strain to this paragraph, and I will not dwell upon
it. I only ask you to remember that enormous sums of money pass
through my hands every day, and that the smallest slip of my memory,
or of my care, or of my fidelity, might cause you irreparable loss.
Familiarity with money and operations in money always tend to lessen
the respect for the regard that others hold it in. To resist the
subtle influences of this familiarity involves a certain wear and
tear of those principles which _must_ be kept intact for your sake.

"I beg you to accept what is my evident meaning, even if my method
of setting it forth has not been particularly happy. I have assured
myself that my claim is a valid one, and I await your obliging reply
with anxiety.

"I remain, very respectfully, "Your obedient servant,

"----FIELDS, _Paying Teller."_

At the end the president suddenly lowered his head wit