CAPPING A STORY.--Rogers, the poet, was fond of telling the story
of a gentleman who lost a shilling in Covent Garden Market, just at
the corner of the Great Piazza, and on his return from India some
five-and-twenty years afterwards, on passing the spot where he supposed
the loss had taken place, remembered the circumstance, and looking
about him on the pavement, picked up his shilling. Here Rogers, in his
own inimitable way of telling a story, would pause, and then add--"IN
HALFPENCE, _wrapped up in paper_."
"I knew the man," said a witty friend to the poet, "but you have
forgotten the most singular point of the story about the recovery of
this lost shilling _just at the door of Willis the bookseller's place
of business_."
"I thought it sufficiently odd," replied the poetical banker, "our
friend having found his shilling after so long a period, and only wish
that my lost notes may turn up again in the same unexpected and amusing
manner--_that notes turn up to me from Willis_."
"Then you must have heard the whole story, and the very remarkable fact
to which I refer? That in the paper which contained the four-and-twenty
halfpence he found another filled with farthings, the exact amount of
which when calculated, proved to be that of compound interest upon the
shilling for five-and-twenty years one month and thirteen days."
Mr. Rogers has never since told the story.