The banker had three clerks; one a youth and very subordinate, the other two steady old men, at good salaries, who knew the affairs of the bank, but did not chatter them out of doors, because they were allowed to talk about them to their employer; and this was a vent.  The tongue must have a regular vent or random explosions—­choose!  Besides the above compliment paid to years of probity and experience, the ancient regime bound these men to the interest and person of their chief by other simple customs now no more.

At each of the four great festivals of the Church they dined with Mr. and Mrs. Hardie, and were feasted and cordially addressed as equals, though they could not be got to reply in quite the same tone.  They were never scorned, but a peculiar warmth of esteem and friendship was shown them on these occasions.  One reason was, the old-fangled banker himself aspired to no higher character than that of a man of business, and were not these clerks men of business good and true? his staff, not his menials?

And since I sneered just now at a vital simplicity, let me hasten to own that here, at least, it was wise, as well as just and worthy.  Where men are forever handling heaps of money, it is prudent to fortify them doubly against temptation—­with self-respect, and a sufficient salary.

It is one thing not to be led into temptation (accident on which half the virtue in the world depends), another to live in it and overcome it; and in a bank it is not the conscience only that is tempted, but the senses.  Piles of glittering gold, amiable as Hesperian fruit; heaps of silver paper, that seem to whisper as they rustle, “Think how great we are, yet see how little; we are fifteen thousand pounds, yet we can go into your pocket; whip us up, and westward ho!  If you have not the courage for that, at all events wet your finger; a dozen of us will stick to it.  That pen in your hand has but to scratch that book there, and who will know?  Besides, you can always put us back, you know.”

Hundreds and thousands of men take a share in the country’s public morality, legislate, build churches, and live and die respectable, who would be jail-birds sooner or later if their sole income was the pay of a banker’s clerk, and their eyes, and hands, and souls rubbed daily against hundred-pound notes as his do.  I tell you it is a temptation of forty-devil power.

Not without reason, then, did this ancient banker bestow some respect and friendship on those who, tempted daily, brought their hands pure, Christmas after Christmas, to their master’s table.  Not without reason did Mrs. Hardie pet them like princes at the great festivals, and always send them home in the carriage as persons their entertainers delighted to honor.  Herein I suspect she looked also, woman-like, to their security; for they were always expected to be solemnly, not improperly, intoxicated by the end of supper; no wise fuddled, but muddled; for the graceful superstition of the day suspected severe sobriety at solemnities as churlish and ungracious.