ble
limits to say so at once, and to retire to his own bedroom and take a
pill, without every one's looking grave and tears being shed and all the
rest of it. As it was, even upon hearing it whispered that somebody else
was subject to headaches, a whole company must look as though they had
never had a headache in their lives. It is true they were not very
prevalent, for the people were the healthiest and most comely imaginable,
owing to the severity with which ill health was treated; still, even the
best were liable to be out of sorts sometimes, and there were few
families that had not a medicine-chest in a cupboard somewhere.

CHAPTER XV: THE MUSICAL BANKS

On my return to the drawing-room, I found that the Mahaina current had
expended itself. The ladies were just putting away their work and
preparing to go out. I asked them where they were going. They answered
with a certain air of reserve that they were going to the bank to get
some money.

Now I had already collected that the mercantile affairs of the
Erewhonians were conducted on a totally different system from our own; I
had, however, gathered little hitherto, except that they had two distinct
commercial systems, of which the one appealed more strongly to the
imagination than anything to which we are accustomed in Europe, inasmuch
as the banks that were conducted upon this system were decorated in the
most profuse fashion, and all mercantile transactions were accompanied
with music, so that they were 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 not the slightest
doubt that they 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 that 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, I gathered that
they have two distinct currencies, each under the control of its own
banks and mercantile codes. One of these (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