* * * * *

THE BANK'S MISTAKE.

"I wish," said Francesca, "you would explain something to me."

"I am full," I said, "of explanations of every conceivable difficulty.
You have only to tap me and an explanation will come bubbling out."

"I am not sure that I want the bubbling sort. On the whole I think I
prefer the still waters that run deep."

"Those too can be provided for you. All you have got to do is to ask."

"What a comfort it is," she said, "to live constantly in the mild and
magnificent eye of an encyclopædia."

"Yes," I said, "it saves a lot of running about, doesn't it? Come now,
fire off your question."

"What is your opinion of the Bank of England?"

"The Bank of England?" I gasped. "One doesn't have opinions of the
Bank of England. One just accepts it, you know, and there you are."

"Yes," she said, "that's exactly what I felt about it. I thought it
was one of the signs of our superiority to everybody else, with its
crisp banknotes and all that."