'Can I leave a few hundreds on deposit?' asks you. 'Why,
of course you can,' reply they; and then you hand over your money, and
then they hand you back a little bit of paper. 'That's your receipt,'
say they. 'All right,' say you; and off you sheer. Perhaps you feel
just a little bit queerish, when you get outside, to think that all
your solid cash has been melted down into that morsel of paper; but
being a light-hearted, easy-going fellow, you don't think any more of
it, till you come home from your next voyage, and go ashore again, and
want your money; when it's ten to one if you don't find your fine new
bank shut up, and your clerks and bran-new mahogany counter vanished.
No, Joyce, I'll trust no bankers."
"I'd rather trust the bankers than the people down this way, any day in
the week," answered the clerk, thoughtfully.
"Don't you worry yourself, Joyce! The money won't be in my keeping very
long. George is to meet me in London on the fifth of April, at the
latest, he says, unless winds and waves are more contrary than ever
they've been since he's had to do with them; and you know George is my
banker. I'm only a sleeping partner in the firm of Jernam Brothers.
George takes the money, and George does what he likes with it--puts it
here and there, and speculates in this and speculates in that. You've
got a business head of your own, Joyce; you're one of George's own
sort; and you are up to all his dodges, which is more than I am.
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