k Yard. And the
procedure never varied. Behind a large table sat two gentlemen, the
secretary and a subordinate, who was, however, older than the secretary.
They had enormous ledgers in front of them, and at the lower corners of
the immense pages was a transverse crease, like a mountain range on the
left and like a valley on the right, caused by secretarial thumbs in
turning over. On the table were also large metal inkstands and wooden
money-coffers. The two officials both wore spectacles, and they both
looked above their spectacles when they talked to members across the
table. They spoke in low tones; they smiled with the most scrupulous
politeness; they never wasted words. They counted money with prim and
efficient gestures, ringing gold with the mien of judges inaccessible to
human emotions. They wrote in the ledgers, and on the membership-cards,
in a hand astoundingly regular and discreetly flourished; the pages of
the ledgers had the mystic charm of ancient manuscripts, and the
finality of decrees of fate. Apparently the scribes never made
mistakes, but sometimes they would whisper in colloquy, and one, without
leaning his body, would run a finger across the ledger of the other;
their fingers knew intimately the geography of the ledgers, and moved as
though they could have found a desired name, date, or number, in the
dark. The whole ceremony was impressive. It really did impress Edwin,
as he would wait his turn among the three or four proud and respectable
members that the going and coming seemed always to leave in the room.
The modest blue-yellow gas, the vast table and ledgers, and the two
sober heads behind; the polite murmurings, the rustle of leaves, the
chink of money, the smooth sound of elegant pens: all this made
something not merely impressive, but beautiful; something that had a
true if narrow dignity; something that ministered to an ideal if a low
one.

But Edwin had regarded the operation as a complete loss of the money
whose payment it involved. Ten years! It was an eternity! And even
then his father would have some preposterous suggestion for rendering
useless the unimaginable fifty pounds! Meanwhile the weekly deduction
of eighteenpence from his miserable income was an exasperating strain.
And then one night the secretary had told him that he was entering on
his last month. If he had possessed any genuine interest in money, he
would have known for himself; but he did not. And then t