how the
mere prospect of activity and exertion had already cheered him.

CHAPTER XXX. TWIST, TROVER, AND CO.

They whose notions of a banker are formed on such home models as Overend
and Gurney and Drummond, and the other princes o' that ilk, will be
probably not a little shocked to learn by what inferior dignitaries the
great craft is represented abroad; your English banker in a foreign
city being the most extraordinary agglomeration of all trades it is well
possible to conceive, combining within himself very commonly the duties
of house-agent, wine-merchant, picture-dealer, curiosity-vendor, with
agencies for the sale of india-rubber shoes, Cuban cigars, and cod-liver
oil. He will, at a moment's notice, start you with a whole establishment
from kitchen to stable, and, equally ready to do the honors of this
world or the next, he will present you in society, or embalm you with
every careful direction for your conveyance "homeward." Well judging
that in dealing thus broadly with mankind a variety of tastes and
opinions must be consulted, they usually hunt in couples, one doing the
serious, the other taking the light comedy parts. The one is the grave,
calm, sensible man, with his prudent reserves and his cautious scruples;
the other, a careless dog, who only "discounts" out of fun, and
charges you "commission" in mere pastime and lightness of heart.

Imagine the heavy father and the light rake of comedy conspiring for
some common object, and you have them. Probably the division-of-labor
science never had a happier illustration than is presented by their
agreement. Who, I ask you,--who can escape the double net thus stretched
for his capture? Whatever your taste or temperament, you must surely be
approachable by one or the other of these.

What Trover cannot, Twist will be certain to accomplish; where Twist
fails, there Trover is sovereign. "Ah, you 'll have to ask _my_ partner
about that," is the stereotyped saying of each. It was thus these kings
of Brentford sniffed at the same nosegay, the world, and, sooth to say,
to their manifest self-satisfaction and profit. If the compact worked
well for all the purposes of catching clients, it was more admirable
still in the difficult task of avoiding them. Strange and exceptional
must his station in life be to whom the secret intelligences of Twist
or Trover could not apply. Were we about to dwell on these gentlemen and
their characteristics, we might advert to the cu