Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/178

168 came from the pockets of the tempted, of the falling; it was stolen, perhaps, or should have gone to the destitute or helpless; some of the moisture of a frantic agitation and despair still clings to it: and you can stoop to accept from these men the wretched four sous profit or so on each pound, and chuckle over and talk of their courtesy. No. For my little changings I am content to pay the few sous, and be under no obligations to this vice partnership.

It is really dramatic, the scene now going on. Every one is busy. Servants are under the table, with a lamp, raking up every scrap of paper—the torn cards, flung down in disgust and despair—the broken-down systems, sifting them in the hope, not often deferred, of coining on the stray note or dropped louis. Most carefully do they pry into the emptied rouleau case, for very often at the bottom lurks the forgotten piece. But they all watch each other. Men are busy at the tables gathering up large handfuls of the pure silver pieces, and with amazing dexterity are covering the whole table with squadrons and squares of them—little heaps of five, and the heaps in rows of five, and the rows of five in squares of five. So with the gold—the sovereigns in rows, the napoleons and fredericks all in regiments and apart. The notes are laid out in rows of five also. Another is busy, not breaking up the rouleaux, but weighing them one against the other; and they are regularly laid out in the same way. The banking cashing gentlemen, with spectacles on, printed forms before them, and pen in hand, are ready; when, all being ready, the senior of the place suddenly appears, and, taking a rake, taps every square of silver, and counts aloud as he goes on; in perhaps a minute has totted up the whole. Down go the figures in the forms, and then the hirelings come with the strong boxes and vast pocket-books for the notes, and shovel in all the ill-gotten gains, which are locked securely with three keys and borne away. After a good day, the pinched-faced M. B. goes out smiling and joking with his friend and brother; and, later on, turning into the superb billiard-rooms, I see him astride on a chair watching his friends, full of merry jests, and smoking a cigar. At midnight, he will go home to his pretty villa and placens uxor, who will ask him how the bank fared to-day, and he will tell her gleefully what the winnings were. Of course he has a hundred or so of shares, and gets his seventy and eighty per cent. Think of that; think of all the villanies by which money is swindled from one man's pocket into another! The racing and betting man gets it from those who are as bad as he is, and who can afford it as well; even the housebreaker chooses the rich man's house for his swag; even the bandit will let the poor man free; but these wretches fatten on what produces the widows' tears and fathers' and husbands' curses. But I lose patience when I dwell on this, which, too, I cannot cure. If I was a zealous missionary at home, eager for "my Master's work," as they call it, I would not go out to the blacks, I would come here; I would stand at the door of this place; I would preach in the street, in front of this red sandstone palace—charnel house of infamy—and warn, dissuade, and exhort, passionately, with my whole heart and soul. There would be real saving of souls. Their gendarmes and police—I should have no fear of them. That good bluff king looks on them with no favour, and gives them a respite grudgingly. Utopian, some will say, of course, and smile. Nothing of the kind. But they would not have the courage. I solemnly declare, if I were in that profession, it is the thing I would do. One soul saved from that den, stopped at the threshold, would be worth all the blacks who ever simulated Christianity for a musket or two strings of glass beads. There are men in England—honest, zealous, ardent ministers—who would gladly seize on this idea: I want no copyright in it.  

