Not a coat of paint for
half a century; not a brushful of whitewash for goodness knows how
much longer. As for the floor, it still showed the gullies and
grooves, with here and there a sturdy knot sticking up like a nut
on a boiler, marking the track of countless impatient depositors
and countless anxious borrowers, it may be, who had lock-stepped
one behind the other for fifty years or more, in their journey
from the outer door to the windows where the Peters of the old
days, and the Peter of the present, presided over the funds
entrusted to their care.
Well enough in its day, you might have said, with a shrug, as you
looked over its forlorn interior. Well enough in its day! Why,
man, old John Astor, James Beekman, Rhinelander Stewart, Moses
Grinnell, and a lot of just such worthies--men whose word was as
good as their notes--and whose notes were often better than the
Government's, presided over its destinies. and helped to stuff the
old-fashioned vault with wads of gilt-edged securities--millions
in value if you did but know it--and making it what it is to-day.
Pages:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26