The board broke up with great good feeling, and Jacobs went away very weak, saying that he was going to tell the joke against Stuart on the street—­if he lived to get there.

Three gentlemen remained, professedly to hear Fields’s letter read.  Two staid because the room was comfortable, and the other because he wanted to have a little private conversation with the president afterward.

Therefore the president wiped away the tears that Stuart’s humor had forced from his eyes, and opened the crumpled letter, and, turning his back to the light, read it aloud, while the rest listened with looks of great amusement in their wrinkled faces.

    “To the President and Directors of the ——­ National Bank.

“GENTLEMEN:  I most respectfully renew my application for an increase of my salary to five thousand dollars per annum, it now being four thousand.  I am impelled to do this because I am convinced that I am not sufficiently recompensed for the labor I perform; and because other tellers, having the same responsibilities, receive the larger sum per annum; and, lastly, because I am about to be married.

“I remember that your answer to my first application was a definite refusal, and I blamed myself for not having presented the case more clearly to your distinguished notice.  Will you permit me to rectify that fault now, and to state briefly why I feel assured that my present claim is not an unreasonable one?

“1.  While ten years ago we agreed that three thousand dollars was a fair compensation for the work I was then called upon to perform, and four years later agreed that four thousand dollars was then fair pay for my increased tasks, caused by the increase of your business, is it not just that I should now ask for a still further advance in view of the fact that your business has doubled since the date of our last contract?

“It has been necessary for me to acquaint myself 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