“Wednesday be it, then,” cried Layton, with a gayety that showed how the mere prospect of activity and exertion had already cheered him. CHAPTER XXX. TWIST, TROVER, AND CO. They whose notions of a banker are formed on such home models as Overend and Gurney and Drummond, and the other princes o' that ilk, will be probably not a little shocked to learn by what inferior dignitaries the great craft is represented abroad; your English banker in a foreign city being the most extraordinary agglomeration of all trades it is well possible to conceive, combining within himself very commonly the duties of house-agent, wine-merchant, picture-dealer, curiosity-vendor, with agencies for the sale of india-rubber shoes, Cuban cigars, and cod-liver oil. He will, at a moment's notice, start you with a whole establishment from kitchen to stable, and, equally ready to do the honors of this world or the next, he will present you in society, or embalm you with every careful direction for your conveyance “homeward.” Well judging that in dealing thus broadly with mankind a variety of tastes and opinions must be consulted, they usually hunt in couples, one doing the serious, the other taking the light comedy parts. The one is the grave, calm, sensible man, with his prudent reserves and his cautious scruples; the other, a careless dog, who only “discounts” out of fun, and charges you “commission” in mere pastime and lightness of heart. Imagine the heavy father and the light rake of comedy conspiring for some common object, and you have them. Probably the division-of-labor science never had a happier illustration than is presented by their agreement. Who, I ask you,--who can escape the double net thus stretched for his capture? Whatever your taste or temperament, you must surely be approachable by one or the other of these. What Trover cannot, Twist will be certain to accomplish; where Twist fails, there Trover is sovereign. “Ah, you 'll have to ask _my_ partner about that,” is the stereotyped saying of each. It was thus these kings of Brentford sniffed at the same nosegay, the world, and, sooth to say, to their manifest self-satisfaction and profit. If the compact worked well for all the purposes of catching clients, it was more admirable still in the difficult task of avoiding them. Strange and exceptional must his station in life be to whom the secret intelligences of Twist or Trover could not apply. Were we about to dwell on these gentlemen and their characteristics, we might advert to the curious fact that though their common system worked so smoothly and successfully, they each maintained for the other the most disparaging opinion, Twist deeming Trover a light, thoughtless, inconsiderate creature, Trover returning the compliment by regarding his partner as a bigoted, low-minded, vulgar sort of fellow, useful behind the desk, but with no range of speculation or enterprise about him.