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called musical banks though the music was hideous to a European ear.
As for the system itself I never understood it, neither can I do so now: they have a code in connection with it, which I have no doubt they themselves understand, but no foreigner can hope to do so. One rule runs into and against another as in a most complicated grammar, or as in Chinese pronunciation, wherein I am told the slightest change in accentuation or tone of voice alters the meaning of a whole sentence. Whatever is incoherent in my description must be referred to the fact of my never having attained to a full comprehension of the subject.
So far however as I could collect anything certain, they appeared to have two entirely distinct currencies, each under the control of its own banks and mercantile codes. The one of them (the one with the musical banks) was supposed to be the system, and to give out the currency in which all monetary transactions should be carried on. As far as I could see, all who wished to be considered respectable, did keep a certain amount of this currency at these banks; nevertheless, if there is one thing of which I am more sure than another it is that the amount so kept was but a very small part of their possessions. I think they took the money, put it into the bank, and then drew it out again, repeating the process day by day, and keeping a certain amount of currency for this purpose and no other, while they paid the expenses of the bank with the other coinage. I am sure the managers and cashiers of the musical banks were not paid in their own currency. Mr. Nosnibor used to go to these musical banks, or rather to the great mother bank of the city, sometimes but not very often. He was a pillar of one of the other kind of banks, though he held some minor office also in these. The ladies generally went alone; as indeed was the case in most families, except on some few great annual occasions.
I had long wanted to know more of this strange system, and had the greatest desire to accompany my hostess and her daughters. I had seen them go out almost every morning since my arrival, and had noticed that they carried their purses in their hands, not exactly ostentatiously, yet just so as that those who met them should see whither they were going. I had never yet been asked to go with them myself.
It is not easy to convey a person's manner by words, and I can hardly give any idea of the peculiar feeling which came upon me whenever I saw the ladies in the hall, with their purses in their hands, and on the point of starting for the bank. There was a something of regret, a something as though they would wish to take me with them, but did not like to ask me, and yet as though I were hardly to ask to be taken. I was determined however to bring matters to an issue with my hostess about my going with them, and after a little parleying and many inquiries as to whether I was perfectly sure that I myself wished to go, it was decided that I might do so.
We passed through several streets of more or less considerable houses, and at last turning round a corner we came upon a large piazza, at the end of which was a magnificent building, of a strange but noble architecture and of great antiquity. It did not open directly on to the piazza, there being a screen, through which was an archway, between the piazza and the actual precincts of the bank. On passing under the archway we found ourselves upon a green sward, round which there ran an arcade or cloister, while in front of us uprose the majestic towers of the bank and its venerable front, which was divided into three deep recesses and adorned with all sorts of marbles and many sculptures. On either side there were beautiful old trees wherein the birds were busy by the hundred, and a number of quaint but substantial houses of singularly comfortable appearance; they were situated in the midst of orchards and gardens, and gave me an impression of great peace and plenty.
Indeed it had been no error to say that this building was one which appealed to the imagination; it did more--it carried both imagination and judgment by storm. It was an epic in stone and marble; neither had I ever seen anything in the least comparable to it. I was completely charmed and melted. I felt more conscious of the existence of a remote past. One knows of this