You wouldn't have had me advertise the fact that I improved upon
the bank's regulations, would you?'
"So that cloud rolled over, and by Jove it was a cloud with a
golden lining. Not silver--real good Australian gold! For old
Ewbank hadn't quite appreciated me till then; he was a hard nut,
a much older man than myself, and I felt pretty sure he thought
me young for the place, and my supposed feat a fluke. But I
never saw a man change his mind more openly. He got out his best
brandy, he made me throw away the cigar I was smoking, and opened
a fresh box. He was a convivial-looking party, with a red
moustache, and a very humorous face (not unlike Tom Emmett's),
and from that moment I laid myself out to attack him on his
convivial flank. But he wasn't a Rosenthall, Bunny; he had a
treble-seamed, hand-sewn head, and could have drunk me under the
table ten times over.
"'All right,' I thought, 'you may go to bed sober, but you'll
sleep like a timber-yard!' And I threw half he gave me through
the open window, when he wasn't looking.
"But he was a good chap, Ewbank, and don't you imagine he was at
all intemperate. Convivial I called him, and I only wish he had
been something more. He did, however, become more and more
genial as the evening advanced, and I had not much difficulty in
getting him to show me round the bank at what was really an
unearthly hour for such a proceeding.
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