You cannot go into a banker’s and say, “I have come to open an account,” just as you would enter a grocer’s with, “Be so good as send me half a dozen tins of the best sardines.” You must be introduced by someone who can vouch for your respectability, or, if not introduced, you must be able yourself to satisfy the banker that you are likely to be a desirable customer. This first step being taken, you open what is called a _current or drawing account_; that is to say, an account into which you can pay money whenever it suits you, and from which you can draw money at any time by means of orders, or _cheques_, as they are called. In a current account in a good bank money is kept safely—which is a great matter—and at the same time you can make use of it as readily as if it were lying in your pocket. For convenience, and partly, too, as a protection against fraud, bankers are in the habit of supplying their customers with books containing forms of cheques. When a book of cheques is exhausted, a new one is supplied on the presentation of a form which, when filled up, may resemble the following:— THE CASHIER, THE COSMOPOLITAN BANK. LONDON, _29th November, 1886._ _Please deliver to Bearer Cheque Book containing 25 cheques payable to_ JEMIMA BOUNCER. Each cheque bears a penny impressed stamp, and a book of cheques is supplied at the price of the stamps—a book, say, of twenty-five costing two shillings and a penny. Cheques may be in one or other of two forms. The first form is— No. 478953. LONDON............188... THE COSMOPOLITAN BANK, 14, Marketjew-street, E.C. Pay..................or Bearer.................. £............... The other form is precisely the same, except that instead of the word “Bearer” it has the word “Order.” As an example of a cheque with the particulars filled in, take the following:— No. 536212. LONDON, 19th November, 1886. THE COSMOPOLITAN BANK, 14, Marketjew-street, E.C. _Pay Miss Georgina Makepeace or Bearer Nine pounds Thirteen shillings and Four pence._ £9: 13: 4. ALICE M. LITTLEPROUD. The difference between cheques made out to “Bearer” and those made out to “Order” is this. Cheques payable to bearer can be cashed by anyone. Those payable to order, however, must be endorsed by the person in whose favour they are drawn before the money can be received. But what is to _endorse_ a cheque? It is simply to write your name on the back of it. Cheques payable to order are certainly safer than those payable to bearer. And they have another advantage. In the event of receipts being lost or mislaid, they supply evidence that the money was received by the person to whom it was owing.