children, supposing themselves to be for ever abandoned and lost, present a piteous spectacle; labouring men, merchants, half-pay officers, retired old gentlemen from trim gardens by the New River, excessively impatient of being trodden on, and very persistent as to the poking in of their written demands with tops of canes and handles of umbrellas. The clerks in this office ought to rival the lamented Sir Charles Bell in their knowledge of the expression of the hand. The varieties of hands that hover about the grating, and are thrust through the little doorways in it, are a continual study for them--or would be, if they had any time to spare, which assuredly they have not. The coarse-grained hand which seems all thumb and knuckle, and no nail, and which takes up money or puts it down with such an odd, clumsy, lumbering touch; the retail trader's hand, which chinks it up and tosses it over with a bounce; the housewife's hand, which has a lingering propensity to keep some of it back, and to drive a bargain by not paying in the last shilling or so of the sum for which her order is obtained; the quick, the slow, the coarse, the fine, the sensitive and dull, the ready and unready--they are always at the grating all day long. Hovering behind the owners of these hands, observant of the various transactions in which they engage, is a tall constable (rather potential with the matrons and widows on account of his portly aspect), who assists the bewildered female public, explains the nature of the printed forms put ready to be filled up for the quicker issuing of orders and the greater exactness as to names, and has an eye on the unready one, as he knots his money up in a pocket-handkerchief or crams it into a greasy pocket-book. If you have any bad money by you, be careful not to bring it here. The portly constable will whisk you into a back office before you can say Jack Robinson, will snip your bad half-crown or five-shilling piece in half directly, and (at the best), after searching inquiry, will fold the pieces in a note of your name and address, and consign them to a bundle of similar trophies for evermore. * * * * *