“I mean to do it, sir,” said Gingham, almost sternly, (for the little man, as he sat on his splendid horse, swelled with the grandeur of his conceptions)—“I mean to do it, sir, by a twofold method: not by two independent methods, operating simultaneously; but by the united operation of two systems combined in one.” His eyes looked full in mine; but his nose pointed at Pledget, who was riding before. I didn’t laugh—in face at least I didn’t—though suddenly seized with a dreadful twitching of the intercostal muscles. “I shall effect my object, sir, partly by paper, partly by hard cash. I shall issue notes payable at sight; and I shall get all the dollars I can into my own keeping. You, when you want dollars to pay the troops, come to me. I, on receiving what I deem an equivalent, let you have them. What will be the result? Instead of requiring a fresh supply of dollars from the coast every time you give the soldiers their pay, you will pay them with the same dollars twice over, nay, over and over again.” “Why, that’s a bank! You will be banker to the British army!” “Exactly,” said Gingham, subsiding all at once into his ordinary style of speech: “I mean to establish a headquarters bank. Suggest a title.” “Suppose,” said I, “as of course you will move with the army, you borrow a suggestion from the military hospitals of the French, and call it “The Ambulatory Bank.” No, that title doesn’t go well. Let me see. A good title requires time and consideration.” “To be candid, sir,” said Gingham, “you need not trouble yourself: the title is already decided. I won’t tell it, I’ll show it you. Have the kindness to draw up by the road-side.” We halted, the convoy passed, the cart came on in the rear, and was stopped by Gingham. He then dismounted, gave the bridle to Coosey, stepped up into the cart, opened the tarpaulin at its back, raised a lid, and exhibited a green baize frame fitting into the top of a box, which frame contained a large and splendid brass plate. “It wouldn’t exactly do,” said Gingham, “to borrow this title at home. Here, though, I mean to make free with it.” In bold, broad letters, excavated in the burnished brass, I read “THE BANK OF ENGLAND.” Really the largeness of Gingham’s plans was too much for my limited capacities. We rode forward again to the head of the column; and I, for a while, rode on in silence, digesting. At length, one idea leading to another, I ventured to say something about “authority—concurrence.”