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DICK FRANCIS

HOW TO BECOME A BANKER

(from ‘THE BANKER’)

Paul Ekaterin Limited is the name of a bank. Ee-ka-te-rin sounds a strange

name. But it is my own name. I am Timothy Ekaterin, great-grandson of Paul

Ekaterin, who started the bank many years ago.

I work for the bank. Now I know what you will think. You will think I am the

son of rich parents. You will think I have a good job in the family bank. You will

think I do very little work and earn a lot of money. Most people think that. But it is

not true. All these things were true of my father. He was very rich. He never

worked. He spent all his money on parties… on travel…on fine clothes and on

champagne. He was a kind man, but not very clever. He died of drink.

My mother was a gambler. She gambled on horses and lost, again and again.

When my father died, there was no money left. My uncle helped us. Uncle Freddie

owns the bank - Paul Ekaterin Limited. He gave money to my mother, but made

her promise not to gamble. And he gave me a job.

I did not want to be a banker, but I had no money and I needed a job. Very

soon, I liked working in the bank. The work was interesting and I was good at it.

But Uncle Freddie was not sure about me. He was afraid that I would drink and

gamble like my parents. But I worked harder than anyone else in the bank. I

wanted to be successful.

Many people came to the bank wanting to borrow money. I work in the

department that decides whether to lend them money or not. We say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

We want to be sure that we will get our money back. Sometimes, we are not sure.

If we say ‘yes’, we take a risk. We may lose the money.

My boss, Gordon Michaels, always made the important decisions in our

department. One morning, he was late for work. I wondered where he was. Gordon

came to the bank, but he did not go inside. He went to the fountain outside the

building and walked into the water! Gordon stood in the fountain. He was wearing

an expensive, black suit…a white shirt…expensive, black shoes. Water was

running over his hair…his face…his expensive clothes. Gordon was an important

banker. Important bankers do not stand in fountains, getting wet.

People were looking out of the windows of the building. They did not

understand what was happening. I ran downstairs and spoke to Gordon quietly. At

first he did not understand me. Then he let me help him out of the fountain. The

chairman of the bank, Henry Shipton, took Gordon into his office.

An hour later, I was sitting at my desk. The phone rang. It was Henry Shipton.

“Can you come to my office?’ the chairman asked. I went upstairs to the

chairman’s office. A secretary opened the door for me. Henry was sitting at his

large desk.

‘Come in, Tim,’ the chairman said. ‘I’m afraid that Gordon is ill.’

‘What’s the matter with him?’ I asked.

“I have spoken to his wife, Judith, on the phone,’ Henry said. ‘It’s his heart.

Gordon has a weak heart and has to take pills. Last week, Gordon’s doctor gave

him some new pills. Well, these pills have made Gordon very ill. He doesn’t know

what he is doing. He needs a long rest and I have sent him home in my car.’

‘And who will look after the department while he is away?’ I asked.

‘Well, Tim,’ Henry said. “Gordon thinks that you are very good at your job, I

want you to look after the department while he is away.’ ‘Thank you,’ I said. I was

very pleased.

The chairman smiled. ‘If you need any advice, ask the people in your

department,’ he said. ‘Come to me if you need any help.’

‘Yes, I will,’ I said. Then I went back to my desk. I was very happy. I was

thirty-two years old and this was my first really important job. But it was not an

easy job. I was afraid of making mistakes. I was afraid of taking risks. I was afraid

of losing the bank’s money.

I studied the files. There were several requests for loans in the files. One of

them was a request from an artist who wanted to make cartoon films. This looked

like a big risk. But, I thought, the artist may become famous like Walt Disney.

Walt Disney made the Mickey Mouse cartoons and they made millions of dollars.

So I asked the artist to come and see me at the office.

2Another request was from a company in South America. I asked my

colleagues in the department about this request. The Research Department had

studied the request earlier. They had

written a report about it. I read this

report for the rest of the day.

It is much easier to say ‘no’ than

to say ‘yes’. But if the bank always

says ‘no’, then the bank doesn’t make

any money.

In the end, I wrote a very polite

letter to the South American

company, saying ‘no’ I hope I was

right.

AFTER READING

Answer the following questions:

1. Who is the main character of the story?

2. Where did he work? What was his job?

3. What did people think of Timothy Ekaterin? Why?

4. Why were Timothy and his parents poor? Who helped them?

5. Why did Timothy have such an unimportant job at the bank?

6. How did he feel about his work? Who was his boss? What was his job?

7. What happened to Gordon Michaels one day?

8. Why did Timothy Ekaterin think that something was wrong with him?

9. What was wrong with Mr. Michaels?

10. What job was Timothy entrusted with? How did he feel about it?

11. What requests did he study that afternoon?

12. What did he think about these requests?

13. What decisions did he make? Do you think he was right? Whу/ why not?