ary may be the case, if you fail to receive a thousand francs, it
seems to be very much the same thing as if you had paid them away.
Everybody who has discounted a bill knows that he has to pay more than
the six per cent fixed by law; for a small percentage appears under
the humble title of "charges," representing a premium on the financial
genius and skill with which the capitalist puts his money out to
interest. The more money he makes out of you, the more he asks.
Wherefore it would be undoubtedly cheaper to discount a bill with a
fool, if fools there be in the profession of bill-discounting.

The law requires the banker to obtain a stock-broker's certificate for
the rate of exchange. When a place is so unlucky as to boast no stock
exchange, two merchants act instead. This is the significance of the
item "brokerage"; it is a fixed charge of a quarter per cent on the
amount of the protested bill. The custom is to consider the amount as
paid to the merchants who act for the stock-broker, and the banker
quietly puts the money into his cash-box. So much for the third item
in this delightful account.

The fourth includes the cost of the piece of stamped paper on which
the account itself appears, as well as the cost of the stamp for
re-draft, as it is ingeniously named, viz., the banker's draft upon
his colleague in Paris.

The fifth is a charge for postage and the legal interest due upon the
amount for the time that it may happen to be absent from the banker's
strong box.

The final item, the exchange, is the object for which the bank exists,
which is to say, for the transmission of sums of money from one place
to another.

Now, sift this account thoroughly, and what do you find? The method of
calculation closely resembles Polichinelle's arithmetic in Lablache's
Neapolitan song, "fifteen and five make twenty-two." The signatures of
Messieurs Postel and Gannerac were obviously given to oblige in the
way of business; the Cointets would act at need for Gannerac as
Gannerac acted for the Cointets. It was a practical application of the
well-known proverb, "Reach me the rhubarb and I will pass you the
senna." Cointet Brothers, moreover, kept a standing account with
Metivier; there was no need of a re-draft, and no re-draft was made. A
returned bill between the two firms simply meant a debit or credit
entry and another line in a ledger.

This highly-colored account, therefore, is reduced to the one thousand
francs, with