Pretty soon the cashier came and placed a letter upon his counter.

“Ah!” thought the teller, “I was mistaken.  I wonder if I can read it here without changing countenance?”

He could but try it.  He tore off the envelope.  It went thus: 

    “Mr.——­Fields, Paying Teller.

    “DEAR SIR:  The president and directors, to whom you addressed a
    request for an increase of salary, must beg to criticise the
    arguments advanced in your polite note.

“They do not understand why you should place a new value upon your honesty because in other people there happens to be sometimes such a thing as dishonesty.  It is a popular notion that honesty among men is rare, but the idea is a mistaken one.  Honesty of the purest kind, as honesty is usually understood, is very common.  They cannot help feeling, also, that you somewhat overestimate the value of your work, which to them seems to be only a higher sort of routine, calling for no intellectual endeavor, and requiring but little more than an ordinary bookkeeper’s care for its perfect performance.  But for the differences that do exist between your tasks and those of the bookkeeper you will remember you are already compensated by a salary a fourth larger.

“Briefly, they consider their bank a piece of money-making mechanism, of which you are an able and respected part; but they cannot understand how you could hope to raise their fear of peculations and villainies when their system of checks and counter-checks is so perfect.  They have never lost a dollar by the immorality of any of their employes, and they are sure that matters are so arranged that any such immorality, even of the rankest kind, could occasion them no inconvenience.

“Nor do they comprehend why your idea that increase of business justifies a request for an increase of salary may not be met with the suggestion that your hours of labor are the same as your former hours, and that all you were able to perform in those hours, to the best of your capacity, was purchased at the beginning of your connection with them.

    “In regard to the pure question of the sufficiency of your salary,
    they hint in the kindest manner that all expenditures are
    contractible as well as extensible.

“They hasten to take this opportunity to express to you their appreciation of your perfect exhibits; and, complimenting you upon the care with which you have fulfilled the duties of your post, they remain your obedient servants.”

The teller felt that a more maddening letter could not have been written.  Its civility seemed to him to be disagreeable suavity; its failure to particularize the points he made to be a disgraceful evasion; and the liberty it took in generalizing his case to be an enormous insult.