In
a conversation with one of the musical bank managers I ventured to hint
this as plainly as politeness would allow. He said that it had been more
or less true till lately; but that now they had put fresh stained glass
windows into all the banks in the country, and repaired the buildings,
and enlarged the organs, and taken to talking nicely to the people in the
streets, and to remembering the ages of their children and giving them
things when they were ill, so that all would henceforth go smoothly.
"But haven't you done anything to the money itself?" said I timidly.
To this day I do not know exactly what the bank-manager said, but it came
to this in the end--that I had better not meddle with things that I did
not understand.
On reviewing the whole matter, I can be certain of this much only, that
the money given out at the musical banks is not the current coin of the
realm. It is not the money with which the people do as a general rule
buy their bread, meat, and clothing. It is like it; some coins very like
it; and it is not counterfeit. It is not, take it all round, a spurious
article made of base metal in imitation of the money which is in daily
use; but it is a distinct coinage which, though I do not suppose it ever
actually superseded the ordinary gold, silver, and copper, was probably
issued by authority, and was intended to supplant those metals.
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