‘I suppose they recover them when they’re lost, and repair them when they’re found,’ thought David. ‘But it’s not a bit usual.’ He found it no more usual when he looked at the girls’ school, for instead of the brass plate on which was written ‘Miss Milligan’s school for Young Ladies,’ he saw written there ‘Happy Families’ Institute,’ and in the window of the bank a notice ‘Sovereigns are cheap to-day.’ ‘I’ll go in there at once,’ thought David, ‘and buy some. I wonder how much money I’ve got.’ He found four pennies in his pocket, and went in with them to the bank. The manager was there talking in a low voice to a very stout gentleman with a meat-chopper in his hand, whom David knew to be the Mint-man from London, just as certainly as if he had had it written all over him. What made it absolutely sure was the fact that sovereigns kept oozing out of his clothes and dropping on the floor. There was quite a pile of them round his feet, which the porter who opened the door to David kept sweeping up, and putting down his neck again. ‘So it’s only the same sovereigns all over again,’ thought David, ‘but there must be a lot of them. No wonder they’re cheap.’ He walked up to where they were standing. ‘Please, can you let me have four penny-worth of sovereigns,’ he said. The Mint-man blew his nose before he answered, and some thirty or forty sovereigns rattled out of his handkerchief. ‘Do you want them new-laid or only for cooking?’ he asked. [Illustration: David finds the Mint-man in the bank] David had no intention of cooking them, so he said: ‘New-laid, please.’ The Mint-man picked off one that was coming out of his right elbow, another from his tie, another from his bottom waistcoat button, and the fourth from his knee, and gave them to David. ‘It’ll never do if other people get to know about it,’ he said. ‘We shall be having all the happy families in, though I don’t suppose they’ve got much money. Have another notice put up at once.’ The manager took an enormous quill pen from behind the counter. It reached right up to the ceiling of the room, and he had to hold it in both hands. Up the side of it was printed, ‘Rod, pole or perch.’ ‘What shall I say?’ he asked. ‘You may say whatever you like,’ said the Mint-man, ‘but you must write whatever I like. Now begin’— ‘Sovereigns are five pounds two ounces each to-day, but they’ll be dearer to-morrow.’ ‘Then will you please give me five pounds for each of my sovereigns?’ asked the greedy David. ‘Never mind about the ounces.’ The Mint-man and manager whispered together for a little while, and David could hear fragments of their talk like ‘financial stringency,’ ‘tight tendency,’ ‘collapse of credit,’ which meant nothing to him. All the time the porter was shovelling sovereigns down the back of the Mint-man’s neck.