Wallet

“ Why kill an old man and rob him? I have no money in my wallet save five hundred roubles. The cross of gold upon my breast is worth only five hundred—to any one of your company—my cloak of sables about three thousand, my cap and my sandals about five hundred each, my bridle, set with precious stones, about a thousand. ”

“ This being done, Roland continued cheerfully:
“I may explain to you that a week ago I had only a wallet of my own, but before leaving on this journey I called upon my mother, and she presented me with another bag. I foresaw during mittagessen that a demand would be made upon us for money, therefore I borrowed all that you two possessed. Walking on ahead, I prepared for what I knew must come, filling the empty wallet with very small stones picked up along the road. That wallet went into the stream. It is surprising how prone human nature is to jump at conclusions. ”

“ As far as I know, I am not worth a dollar in the world, as you Americans would put it. I had something like eighty pounds in my pocket when I fell overboard, but my wallet is gone, and here is all I now possess. ”

“ Thorndyke corrected. "I said suggestions. And those suggestions may be quite misleading. There may be some factor, such as change of ownership of the wallet, which we have not allowed for. But, taking the appearances at their face value, that is what they suggest. There is the wallet itself, for instance—strong, durable, but shabby with years of wear. And observe that it is a travelling-wallet and would be subjected to wear only during travel. Then further, as to the time factor, there are the hone and the razors. ”

“ A wallet, with letters from the Pan Am. people, with my passport, letters of- identification, and a few time-tables. Luckily my traveler's checks were safe, as I kept them scattered, with the big ones in my hip pocket. ”

“ He drew forth the large brown wallet they had often seen; rubbed it in his hands, until his fingers could feel; then opened the leather band. From one receptacle he lifted a thick package of bank-notes.
“I liked you, Bellair—almost as I liked one Belding. I could have done much for you. ”

“ On talking with her I found that the thief had been better informed than I, for he had cut the skirt of her dress with a knife and had taken $80 which was in an inside pocket. It is no unusual sight for a laborer to draw from his wallet a roll of bills amounting to $50 or more to pay for a ten cent spelling book in our night school. ”

“ I took up the wallets, which were worn and greasy from long service, opened them, and saw that they were filled with scraps, fragments, and folded pieces of paper, nearly every one of which had been carried for a long time loose in the pocket. ”

“ It was for two dollars and seventy five cents, and this represented a larger sum than he possessed.
He took the check and led the way to the cashier's desk. Then he examined his pockets.
"By Jove," he said, "I left my wallet in my other coat. May I borrow five dollars till tomorrow?" ”

“ It calls for but one condition: That you keep all your money—bills and change—in it and spend only from it. If this is faithfully done, within twenty-four hours you will have saved enough to buy one—no, two stamps; which at the present price will come to eight dollars and twenty-eight cents.”
To Van Tenner’s skeptical eye the purse placed in his hand seemed an ordinary-enough affair—a cheap, flattish wallet, without distinguishing mark until he opened it and found, set into the flap, a celluloid tablet flanked by a small pencil. ”

“ There were two wallets, one of £100 and the other £200. I took the keys from him, laid them upon the compter: I went with him into the next room, which was the kitchen, and in another chest was two wallets more: and now the gentleman was speechless. ”

“ I exchanged them for the little notebook and clip-on pencil I keep in the same place. I exchanged wallets, too, not without a pang for the eighty-odd dollars in expense money that was in mine. I put off examining his. For good measure I switched the handkerchiefs we both carried in our right hip pockets and the few coins in the change pockets of our jackets.
"Looks like a fair exchange," Joy said. "Now what? Can't we hurry up?"
"Where are the others?"
"I don't know. I came back when I missed you."
I found a door that opened and pulled my duplicate into the room. ”

“ Anglo-Saxon writings frequently speak of money as given by weight. Our cut No. 53 is a representation of the merchant, or the toll-taker, seated before his account book, with his scales hanging to the desk. In the first of these cuts, a man holds the bag or purse, in which the money received for toll or merchandise is deposited. The cut No. 54 represents the receiver pouring the money out of his bag into the cyst, or chest, in which it is to be locked up and kept in his treasury. ”

“ A kindred feeling might suggest to our “party of pleasure,” that people can’t travel now-a-days without a considerable sum of money with them, and therefore wherever there was a pocket there would also be money. And then the habit of purse-carrying, which brings all the money together—the notes in the one end, and the silver or gold in the other—is a preparation just made for thieves, a convenience for which, with little time to spare, they cannot be too grateful. ”

“ All shopkeepers in good business can afford to buy proper wrapping-paper, and they generally do so. It is very cheap. See also that they do not wrap your purchase in so small a bit of paper as to squeeze and crush it.
If you go out with much money, (which is never advisable,) divide it into two portions, putting part in your pocket-book or porte-monnaie, and the remainder into your purse, so that if you lose it, or have your pocket picked, the loss may be less. Do not carry notes in your purse, but keep them in your pocket-book. Little gold dollars had best go into your porte-monnaie. ”

“ A watch and chain—the small pocket articles which every man carries—keys, a monocle eyeglass, a purse full of gold, loose silver, a note-case containing a considerable sum in bank-notes, some English, some foreign, letters and papers, a pocket diary—these were all. Allerdyke took each as Gaffney produced them, and placed each in the bag with no more than a mere glance.
"Everything there is, sir," whispered the chauffeur at last. "I've been through every pocket." ”

“ Is there a man here who expects that he, or his children, or his children's children, shall see the day when only gold coin, glittering through silk purses, will be the currency of the country, to the entire exclusion of bank notes? ”

“ The substitute for all kinds of bank notes as the money for the people should be a purely people’s money—a national currency whose basis of value would be the accumulated wealth of the country, and also its capacity for regularly increasing such wealth. Is there any reliance to be placed in a currency issued by an individual or a number of individuals through an incorporated bank, based upon his or their wealth, which is at all times liable to pass into the hands of other individuals? ”

“ Banks supply two kinds of currency, viz. bank notes—which are money; and bank deposits (or rights to draw) —which are not money. (2) A bank check is merely a certificate of a right to draw. (3) Behind the claims of depositors and note holders stand, not simply the cash reserve, but all the assets of the bank. (4) Deposit banking is a device by which wealth, incapable of direct circulation, may be made the basis of the circulation of rights to draw. ”

“ We place gold, and all such substances, on the side of documents, as far as they operate by signature;—on the side of store as far as they operate by value. Then the currency represents the quantity of debt in the country, and the store the quantity of its possession. The ownership of all the property is divided between the holders of currency and holders of store, and whatever the claiming value of the currency is at any moment, that value is to be deducted from the riches of the store-holders. ”

“ For this purpose the currency of active banks is delivered from the assorters through the teller to a "maker-up" who takes an inventory. Next day he assorts the packages of a group in a till similar to those already described, except that it is laid flat upon a low counter. Then he takes the contents of a box, ascertains, by examining the upper note of each package, that the money is all the issue of a single bank, and writes in ink upon a blank label the title of the bank, the amount of each denomination, and the total of all, signs and dates this, and straps it upon the bundle. ”

“ MODE OF CARRYING CASH AND BABIES.
In travelling, the carriage of money is a great annoyance, owing to the smallness of its value and the large number of coins or "cash" necessary to make up an amount of any size. Exchanging eighteen shillings English for brass cash, the weight of them amounted to seventy-two pounds, which had to be carried by the coolies. These cash have a square hole in the middle, and are strung together upon a piece of straw twist. Should the straw break, the loss of time in getting up the pieces is much more than the loss of the money. ”

“ Every shopkeeper has a board secured by a ledge and running to a point, on which the paras are reckoned, and then spouted into a canvass bag. At the present rate of exchange, this apparently silver coin is less than one third of a farthing, and, as all money is reckoned by it, a stranger is startled to see his baccul’s or huckster’s bills amount to 10,000 paras. ”

“ Money against deposits, (5) Money against goods, (6) Deposits against goods. For our purpose, only the last two types of exchange are important, for these constitute the circulation of currency. As regards the other four, the first and third have been previously explained as "money changing" and "barter" respectively. The second and fourth are banking transactions: the second being such as the selling of drafts for checks, or the mutual cancellation of bank clearings; and the fourth being such operations as the depositing or the withdrawing of money, by depositing cash or cashing checks. ”

“ German gold, English bank-notes, letters of credit, foreign bills of exchange, bankers' cheques—untold wealth in every form and variety of currency. The man must have carried some seven or eight hundred pounds about his person. And that wasn't all either. There were letters in the purse, too—letters which, of course, Guy couldn't dream of looking at ”

“ It was half filled with American paper currency, as he knew—currency neatly parcelled and carefully packed by his own hands.
"I often wonder, Colonel Boundary," said the interested clerk, "why you don't use the bank safe. When a customer has his own, you know, we are not responsible for any of his losses." ”

“ I remember she bought points and some stuff for stocks, and needles and a reel of thread, and when she offered a gold piece everybody looked at us, and the shopkeeper called her "My lady" and me "My lord," and gave us in change for the gold piece a great handful of paper money.
We emerged from the shop amazed, and doubtful of the paper stuff, and walked up the street and out into the country, pausing under a great maple-tree to sort this new Continental currency, of which we had enough to stuff a pillow. ”

“ Every Saturday morning a man comes to my bank to cash a cheque for a hundred and fifty pounds. (How he gets through all that money in a week I have never had the courage to ask him.) Every Saturday morning I come to my bank to cash a cheque for—well, whatever it happens to be, you know.
The trouble is that we nearly always coincide; only the other man always seems to coincide first. ”

“ April 8, 1898—"The truth is, we buy only with gold coin, to which alone the name of money ought to be applied. No bank note, treasury note or paper certificate, in any form or by whomsoever issued, is more than an instrument of credit. ”

“ Money is also conveyed from province to province by these Tartars, when, if the amount is large, several horses are strung together, and are escorted by mounted police. The currency in the interior being silver coins of the size of our five-shilling pieces, the jolting and friction occasioned by the drive are likely to tear ordinary bags, so the latter are enclosed in a special rope-bag, which is neatly and compactly knitted over them. Gold coin is put up in leather, which is puckered up to form a bag, and tied and sealed on the top. ”

“ Carrying cash meant carrying coins. At any rate, not one of these travellers mentions using the bank-notes of the day, the 'segni reppresentativi' just introduced by the Italian bankers, nor even the ancient semi-currency of jewels, unless one includes Henri III, who, when escaping from the throne of Poland to that of France, carried off three hundred thousand crowns' worth. Carrying coins for future use meant, in the ordinary way, sewing them up in one's clothes. ”

“ One of the members present then takes from his pocket what he announces as one of the rarest coins in existence—passes it around the table. Coin travels back and forth, every one examining it, and the conversation goes to another topic, say the influence of the automobile on domestic infelicity, or some other such asininely intellectual club topic—you know? All at once the owner calls for his coin.
"The coin is nowhere to be found. Every one looks at every one else. ”

“ For small trading and at home, metal money answers well. But there is great trouble and risk in sending coin hundreds of miles to pay for goods bought at a distance. An easily carried substitute for gold and silver is the bank-note, a promise to pay so much, issued by the treasury or some banker, and passing as money from hand to hand. ”

“ The bulk and weight of the silver currency constituted a most serious embarrassment to commerce and all money transactions. Thus, if one proposed to trade, even to a retail extent, or go on a journey, a bag of coin had to be carried. ”