No tyro need be told that these notes are representatives of weightier value, and were invented partly to supersede the necessity of carrying about ponderous parcels of precious metal. Hence—to treat of it soberly—four paper parcels taken out, and placed in our hands—consisting of four reams of Bank notes ready for issue, and not much more bulky than a thick octavo volume—though they represent gold of the weight of _two tons_, and of the value of two millions of pounds sterling, yet weigh not quite one pound avoirdupois each, or nearly four pounds together. The value in gold of what we could convey away in a couple of side pockets (if simply permitted by the dear Old Lady in Threadneedle Street, without proceeding to extremities upon the person of the Chief Cashier) would have required, but for her admirable publications, two of Barclay and Perkins’s strongest horses to draw.[1] Footnote 1: One thousand sovereigns weigh twenty-one pounds, and five hundred and twelve Bank-notes weigh exactly one pound. We have already made mention of the Old Lady’s Lodge, Hall, Parlour, Store-room, and Drawing-room. Her Cellars are not less curious. In these she keeps neither wine, nor beer, nor wood, nor coal. They are devoted solely to the reception of the precious metals. They are like the caves of Treasures in the Arabian Nights; the common Lamp that shows them becomes a Wonderful Lamp in Mr. Marshall’s hands, and Mr. Marshall becomes a Genie. Yet only by the power of association; for they are very respectable arched cellars that would make dry skittle-grounds, and have nothing rare about them but their glittering contents. One vault is full of what might be barrels of oysters—if it were not the Russian Loan. Another is rich here and there with piles of gold bars, set cross-wise, like sandwiches at supper, or rich biscuits in a confectioner’s shop. Another has a moonlight air from the presence of so much silver. Dusky avenues branch off, where gold and silver amicably bide their time in cool retreats, not looking at all mischievous here, or anxious to play the Devil with our souls. Oh for such cellars at home! “Look out for your young master half a dozen bars of the ten bin.” “Let me have a wedge of the old crusted.” “Another Million before we part—only one Million more, to finish with!” The Temperance Cause would make but slow way, as to such cellars, we have a shrewd suspicion! Beauty of colour is here associated with worth. One of these brilliant bars of gold weighs sixteen pounds troy, and its value is eight hundred pounds sterling. A pile of these, lying in a dark corner—like neglected cheese, or bars of yellow soap—and which might be contained in an ordinary tea-chest, is worth two hundred and ten thousand pounds. Fortune herself transmuted into metal seems to repose at our feet. Yet this is only an _eightieth_ part of the wealth contained in the Old Lady’s cellars.