The cashier, after a moment’s reflection, accepted the wager, and Mr. Girard departed to his farm.  He returned in a few hours, confident that he had won.  The cashier met him with a smile.

“Where is my money?” asked Girard, triumphantly.

“The money is mine,” replied the cashier.  “Come and see.”

He led the merchant to an unused room of the bank, and there, to his dismay, Girard saw the walls and ceiling covered with spots of ink, which the cashier had dashed on them with a brush.

“Do you mean to say there are a million of dots here?” he cried, angrily.

“Count them, and see,” replied his subordinate, laughing.  “You know the wager was a million of dots with ink.”

“But I expected you would make them with the pen.”

“I did not undertake any thing of the kind.”

The joke was too good, and the merchant not only paid the amount of the wager, but the cost of cleaning the walls.

In 1810 the question of renewing the charter of the old Bank of the United States was actively discussed.  Girard was a warm friend of that institution, which he believed had been the cause of a very great part of the prosperity of the country, and was firmly convinced that Congress would renew the charter.  In this belief he ordered the Barings, of London, to invest all his funds in their hands in shares of the Bank of the United States, which was done, during the following year, to the amount of half a million of dollars.  When the charter expired, he was the principal creditor of that institution, which Congress refused to renew.  Discovering that he could purchase the old Bank and the cashier’s house for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, he at once secured them, and on the 12th of May, 1812, opened the Girard Bank, with a capital of one million two hundred thousand dollars, which he increased the next year by one hundred thousand dollars more.  He retained all the old officers of the Bank of the United States, especially the cashier, Mr. Simpson, to whose skill and experience he was greatly indebted for his subsequent success.

Finding that the salaries which had been paid by the Government were higher than those paid elsewhere, he cut them down to the rate given by the other banks.  The watchman had always received from the old Bank the gift of an overcoat at Christmas, but Girard put a stop to this.  He gave no gratuities to any of his employes, but confined them to the compensation for which they had bargained; yet he contrived to get out of them service more devoted than was received by other men who paid higher wages and made presents.  Appeals to him for aid were unanswered.  No poor man ever came full-handed from his presence.  He turned a deaf ear to the entreaties of failing merchants to help them on their feet again.  He was neither generous nor charitable.  When his faithful cashier died, after long years spent in his service, he manifested the most hardened indifference to the bereavement of the family of that gentleman, and left them to struggle along as best they could.