The Unwilling Mistress

Alma Werdon's story places the powerful bank vice-president Milton King under microscopic examination as he plays puppet master and moves his subordinates about the carpeted and chromed stage of his establishment. The strings he pulls affect the lives of half a dozen people. They include two of his employees whose future careers in the banking circles depend upon his personal acceptance or rejection. Just as cattle, oxen, and other beasts of burden were used in early times for bartering and mediums of exchange, King uses his staff members to negotiate his needs and maintain the balance of power. The clinical world of income statements and balance sheets becomes a battleground for personal profit and gain. The pyramid concept with the beneficent banker looking down from on high and watching over the funds and futures of his depositors is blasted to pieces as this empirical figure exercises his corporate responsibilities for his own personal benefit.