The fittings are perfect, as perfect as in a London bank, and there is an air of extreme precision.  Yonder open drawers are full of pass-books; upon the desks and on the broad mantelpiece are piles of cheques, not scattered in disorder but arranged in exact heaps.  The very inkstands are heavy and vast, and you just catch a glimpse round the edge of the semi-sentry box which guards the desk of the chief cashier, of a ledger so huge that the mind can hardly realise the extent of the business which requires such ponderous volumes to record it.  Then beyond these a glass door, half open, apparently leads to the manager’s room, for within it is a table strewn with papers, and you can see the green-painted iron wall of a safe.

The clerks, like the place, are somewhat imposing; they are in no hurry, they allow you time to look round you and imbibe the sense of awe which the magnificent mahogany counter and the brazen fittings, all the evidences of wealth, are so calculated to inspire.  The hollow sound of your footstep on the floor does not seem heard; the slight ‘Ahem!’ you utter after you have waited a few moments attracts no attention, nor the rustling of your papers.  The junior clerks are adding up column after column of figures, and are totally absorbed; the chief cashier is pondering deeply over a letter and annotating it.  By-and-by he puts it down, and slowly approaches.  But after you have gone through the preliminary ceremony of waiting, which is an institution of the place, the treatment quite changes.  Your business is accomplished with practised ease, any information you may require is forthcoming on the instant, and deft fingers pass you the coin.  In brief, the whole machinery of banking is here as complete as in Lombard Street.  The complicated ramifications of commercial transactions are as well understood and as closely studied as in the ‘City.’  No matter what your wishes, provided, of course, that your credentials are unimpeachable, they will be conducted for you satisfactorily and without delay.

Yet the green meadows are within an arrow shot, and standing on the threshold and looking down a cross street you can see the elms of the hedgerows closing in the prospect.  It is really wonderful that such conveniences should he found in so apparently insignificant a place.  The intelligence and courtesy of the officials is most marked.  It is clear, upon reflection, that such intelligence, such manners, and knowledge not only of business but of men (for a banker and a banker’s agent has often to judge at a moment’s notice whether a man be a rogue or honest), cannot be had for nothing.  They must be paid for, and, in so far at least as the heads are concerned, paid liberally.  It is known that the old Bank has often paid twenty and twenty-five per cent, to its shareholders.  Where does all this money come from?  From Hodge, toiling in the field and earning his livelihood in the sweat of his brow?  One would hardly think so at first, and yet there are no great businesses or manufactories here.  Somehow or other the money that pays for this courtesy and commercial knowledge, for these magnificent premises and furniture, that pays the shareholders twenty-five per cent., must be drawn from the green meadows, the cornfields, and the hills where the sheep feed.