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which had stunted their natural development, and that they
would have been more healthily minded in any other pro-
fession. I was always sorry for them, for in nine cases out of
ten they were well-meaning persons; they were in the main
very poorly paid; their constitutions were as a rule above
suspicion; and there were recorded numberless instances of
their self-sacrifice and generosity; but they had had the mis-
fortune to have been betrayed into a false position at an age
for the most part when their judgement was not matured,
and after having been kept in studied ignorance of the real
difficulties of the system. But this did not make their posi-
tion the less a false one, and its bad effects upon themselves
were unmistakable.
Few people would speak quite openly and freely before
them, which struck me as a very bad sign. When they were
in the room every one would talk as though all currency
save that of the Musical Banks should be abolished; and yet
they knew perfectly well that even the cashiers themselves
hardly used the Musical Bank money more than other peo-
ple. It was expected of them that they should appear to do
so, but this was all. The less thoughtful of them did not
seem particularly unhappy, but many were plainly sick at
heart, though perhaps they hardly knew it, and would not
have owned to being so. Some few were opponents of the
whole system; but these were liable to be dismissed from
their employment at any moment, and this rendered them
very careful, for a man who had once been cashier at a Musi-
cal Bank was out of the field for other employment, and was
generally unfitted for it by reason of that course of treat-

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