"Thought? Study? Surely it would. But _I_ think and study all the time! Let me see; where shall we begin? With the Jews and Lombards in England, Think what you have!--contrast, costumes, situations, everything. Then take the 'Lombards' in Italy itself; the founding of the earliest banks in Venice, Lucca, Genoa, Florence; the glamour of it, the spectacularity of it, the dealings with popes and with foreign kings! And there were the Fuggers at Augsburg who trafficked with emperors: houses with those step-ladder gables, and people with puffed elbows and slashed sleeves and feathers of all colours in those wide hats. And then the way that kings and emperors treated the bankers: Edward the Second refusing to repay his Florentine loans and bringing the whole city to ruin; Charles the First sallying out to the Mint and boldly appropriating every penny stored there--plain, barefaced robbery. Then, later, the armies of Revolutionary France pillaging banks everywhere--grenadiers, musketeers and cuirassiers in full activity. Among others, the Bank of Amsterdam--the one that loaned all those millions of florins to the East India Company. And that brings in, you see, turbans, temples, jewels, palm-trees, and what not besides----" "So much trouble," breathed Daffingdon; "so much effort; such an expense for costumes." "And if you want to enlarge the scheme," pursued Virgilia, waiving all considerations of trouble, effort and expense, "so as to include coining, money-changing and all that, why, think what you have then! The brokers at Corinth, the _mensarii_ in the Roman Forum. And think of the ducats designed by Da Vinci and by Cellini! And all the Byzantine coins in Gibbon--the student's edition is full of them! Why, there are even the Assyrian tablets--you must have heard about the discovery of the records of that old Babylonian bank. Think of the costumes, the architecture, the square curled beards, the flat winged lions, and all. Why, dear me, I see the whole series of lunettes as good as arranged for, and work laid out for a dozen of you, or more!" cried Virgilia, as she pounced upon a sheet of paper and snatched the pen from Dill. "A dozen?" he murmured. "A hundred!" "Nonsense!" she returned. "Four or five of you could manage it very handily. You, and Giles, and----" "The Academy would expect recognition," said Dill. "One of the professors for a third. And somebody or other from the Warren, I suppose, for a fourth." "Three subjects apiece, then," said Virgilia. "Go in and win!--By the way, did I mention Phidion of Argos? He was one of the primitive coiners. And then there was Athelstane, who regulated minting among the early Saxons...." X