“Holloa!  Hackbut, how’s this?”—­“I’m a bit late, sir, morning.”—­“Late! you were late yesterday evening, weren’t you?”—­“Why, sir, the way the clerks at that Bank of Mortimer and Pennycuick’s rush away from business and close the doors after ’em, as if their day began at four p.m., and business was botheration:  it’s a disgrace to the City o’ London.  And I beg pardon for being late, but never sleeping a wink all night for fear about this money, I am late this morning, I humbly confess.  When I got to the Bank, the doors were shut.  Our clock’s correct; that I know.  My belief, sir, is, the clerks at Mortimer and Pennycuick’s put on the time.”—­“Oh! we must have this inquired into.”

Anthony dramatized the farcical scene which he imagined between himself and Mr. Sequin, the head clerk at Boyne’s, with immense relish; and terminated it by establishing his reputation for honesty higher than ever at the Bank, after which violent exercise of his fancy, the old man sank into a dulness during several days.  The farmer slept at his lodgings for one night, and talked of money, and of selling his farm; and half hinted that it would be a brotherly proceeding on Anthony’s part to buy it, and hold it, so as to keep it in the family.  The farmer’s deep belief in the existence of his hoards always did Anthony peculiar mischief.  Anthony grew conscious of a giddiness, and all the next day he was scarcely fit for his work.  But the day following that he was calm and attentive.  Two bags of gold were placed in his hands, and he walked with caution down the steps of the Bank, turned the corner, and went straight on to the West, never once hesitating, or casting a thought behind upon Mortimer and Pennycuick’s.  He had not, in truth, one that was loose to be cast.  All his thoughts were boiling in his head, obfuscating him with a prodigious steam, through which he beheld the city surging, and the streets curving like lines in water, and the people mixing and passing into and out of one another in an astonishing manner—­no face distinguishable; the whole thick multitude appearing to be stirred like glue in a gallipot.  The only distinct thought which he had sprang from a fear that the dishonest ruffians would try to steal his gold, and he hugged it, and groaned to see that villany was abroad.  Marvellous, too, that the clocks on the churches, all the way along the Westward thoroughfare, stuck at the hour when Banks are closed to business!  It was some time, or a pretence at some time, before the minute-hands surmounted that difficulty.  Having done so, they rushed ahead to the ensuing hour with the mad precipitation of pantomimic machinery.  The sight of them presently standing on the hour, like a sentinel presenting arms, was startling—­laughable.  Anthony could not have flipped with his fingers fifty times in the interval; he was sure of it, “or not much more,” he said.  So the City was shut to him behind iron bars.

Up in the West there is not so much to be dreaded from the rapacity of men.  You do not hear of such alarming burglaries there every day; every hand is not at another’s throat there, or in another’s pocket; at least, not until after nightfall; and when the dark should come on, Anthony had determined to make for his own quarter with all speed.  Darkness is horrible in foreign places, but foreign places are not so accusing to you by daylight.