Three hands of us, counting dollars till dinner-time, did a good stroke of work:—only that plaguy “small mixed” was a serious addition to our labours. Fancy a bag of small silver, a thousand dollars in amount, shot out before you on the table; a heap of mingled coin, specimens of every fraction of a dollar, that ever issued in silver from the Spanish mint; the whole lot to be sorted, counted, and made right. A single bag took us often two or three hours. As to counting a bag of whole dollars, that was a far easier job. Count ten; set them on the table in a pile. Ten such piles in a row make a hundred; ten such rows in a square make one thousand:—the bag is counted. Unluckily, though, your last pile is sometimes nine, or eleven, instead of ten. Ah, you’re a greenhorn; you’ve counted wrong. Then down goes your nose to the edge of the table; your eye glances over the summit of the piles. Discover, if you can, a pile higher or lower than the rest: the error is then detected. Should you fail, there’s no remedy: “Mr Snooks, you had better count the whole again.” Still wrong? then some older hand is set to count. Can’t he get it right? Why, then, the bag is wrong. Set it on one side and count another. Fingers sore, about the third day. With the first day’s counting they get a little black; on the second, rough, and painful; third, cracked, and begin to bleed. About this time comes a thundering letter, blowing up the whole department sky high, for not having the money ready to pay the troops. What your fingers are, if the counting goes on a day or two longer, especially with the encouraging accompaniment of a rap on the knuckles, I leave you to guess. We had a military guard; four Germans, one of them a corporal. The man on duty as sentry walked up and down in the passage, while the other three sat over a small fire in an adjoining room. They could sing in parts—sang well. One of them struck up, the others followed, the sentry joined in as he paced the lobby. Sometimes it was a national song, sometimes a hymn. Nothing, in sacred music, like those German hymns. But then, take notice, you must have German voices to do them justice. The men of our guard were quiet, sober, well-conducted fellows; always willing to make themselves useful; rendered us great assistance in helping the carpenter to open and close the boxes, and in lifting the bags from the boxes to the table, and _vice versâ_. Mr Q—, as an acknowledgment, made a handsome addition to their supper. Our dinner was strictly departmental, very much to my taste; quite a sort of family party. No one was present save the gentlemen of our own office at Passages. Mr Q—, I rather suspect, wanted to give me some idea of my duties, in the responsible charge of conducting treasure to headquarters through the enemy’s country. Perhaps he thought a little chat amongst ourselves would be the best mode of instruction.