Hammersmith Coot

Hammersmith Coot is now famous in bank lore, and a man whose name is breathed with awe wherever bank clerks meet. For this is the man, lowly bank clerk and computer* though he is, who dared stand up in front of a crowded banking hall and tell Mavolio Bent that he was wrong and his figures didn't add up.

• In pre-computer days, a Computer was the term for a human being who performed all the lowly and menial accounting tasks such as the pages upon pages upon pages of basic addition. Strange but true.