I sometimes doubt whether my bank takes me really seriously. Not that it
isn't businesslike. They let me know to the minute when I have overdrawn
my account by five and elevenpence; but they cash my cheques with a
certain air of patronage, whereas, if you look at things properly, the
patronage is all on my side.
Every Saturday morning a man comes to my bank to cash a cheque for a
hundred and fifty pounds. (How he gets through all that money in a week
I have never had the courage to ask him.) Every Saturday morning I come
to my bank to cash a cheque for--well, whatever it happens to be, you
know.
The trouble is that we nearly always coincide; only the other man always
seems to coincide first. And, as he takes his hundred and fifty on a
selective principle, I am beginning to know from bitter experience what
he will ask for and how long he will take to get served. He begins with
a note for fifty and goes on with fifty in fivers. Then he has twenty
sovereigns, and so on, down to the pound in copper. He and the cashier
chat airily the while of cabbages and kaisers. Then at last he goes away
full, and the cashier turns to me.
The Saturday before last I ventured to ask whether, if the
hundred-and-fifty pounder always insisted on arriving two seconds before
me, it wouldn't be possible to cash my cheque, which is a simple little
thing, in one of the intervals during which, after sending to the
cellars for more gold, they relapse into easy conversation; or,
alternatively, if it was really necessary to pay a customer exactly the
complicated bunches of monies he demanded; and, if so, whether it
couldn't be done any quicker.
The answer proving unsatisfactory I determined to arrive earlier last
Saturday. I made no mistake. I hung about the door of the bank for a
quarter of an hour till I saw my rival approach. I came in just ahead of
him, and presented my cheque. The cashier received it with his usual
little smile and turned it over. Then his usual little smile left him
and he set sadly to work.
The hundred-and-fifty pound man chafed and stamped his feet behind me
for ten minutes, while I gloated. It was my day--my _Tag_.
I think you may like to know just in what shape I demanded the payment
of my modest fifty shillings:--
_£_ _s._ _d._
1 0 0 in one pound notes.
0 10 0 in ten shilling notes.
0 10 0 in gold.
0 5 0 in shilling postal orders.
0 2 0 in threepenny bits.
0 0 9-1/2 in halfpennies.
0 1 10-1/4 in farthings.
0 0 4 in silver, if possible
(otherwise stamps).
0 0 0-1/4 in pins.
_______________
2 10 0
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