Nothing of the kind! The highest court in the Empire sits in less state than a police court. There is no jury and no impassioned Law Court rhetoric. Counsel leans over his little reading-desk and talks to their lordships in a quiet, conversational voice. It is more like a directors' meeting than an Empire's appeal court. I half expect someone to rise and declare a dividend! "And now," says the Voice in the quiet tone of a secretary reading an annual report, "I would like your lordships to look at page four hundred and two." Their lordships comply. What strange things go on here! One day they discuss an obscure passage in the Koran, the next they are debating the inner meaning of the Hedaya. When they deal with South Africa's Roman-Dutch law they bandy the names of Grotius and Vinnius, authorities the Law Courts never hear! Stranger things than this happen. Did you know that in parts of the British Empire the old French law, long expelled from France, lives on, regulating men's lives. Appeals from Mauritius and the Seychelles Islands refer to the Code Napoleon! When Quebec submits its troubles to London this room hears, like an echo from long ago, mention of the ancient Custom of Paris; and the two men in evening dress go tip-toeing round the room to look over the shelves for Beaumanoir and Dumoulin! Just think of that! * * * As I creep away from the Privy Council, feeling that it is one of the most wonderful places in London, that Voice goes on and on, quiet, conversational, and--the echo will be heard in Bombay! Tons of Money There is no mystery about the making of money. The Royal Mint is exactly like any other factory. This surprised me. I felt that the manufacture of money must surely be surrounded by the unusual. It hardly seemed natural that this metal for whose possession we sweat and slave, lie and slander, and even, on occasions, commit murder, should be churned out by nonchalant machines no different in their general attitude towards production from those machines which cut out nails or stamp out dust bins. It was with quite a shock that I watched a half-crown machine at work. What an ideal birthday present! The thing hypnotized me. Click-click-click-click it went, and at every click a silver-white half-crown was born, a real good half-crown ready to be spent. What a generous mouth the machine had; how casual it was.... "Click-click" went the metal millionaire, shooting its lovely children into a rough wooden trough. The pile grew as I watched it. It began with a taxicab fare; the next second a twin was born; they lay together for a second before they represented a solicitor's fee, or a dog licence; in five more seconds there was a whole pound lying there. So it went on hour after hour while spectators stood by reverently feeling that the machine was grinning as it pounded away enthusiastically producing potential ermine cloaks, motor-cars, freehold houses, and winters in the south of France.