convenient to a Ministry,) is a very worthy
means of doing honor to the memory of an
illustrious man, by nature modest, manly,
unaffected, unspoilt, and retiring. My conclusions
on this subject I reserve for another
occasion. All I mean at present, is, that I am
sure I was not asleep. I was considering the
subject under the tree, with my eyes open,
when a friend of mine, known on 'Change,
clapped me on the shoulder, and said
triumphantly:

"Well, old boy, I hope there is gold enough
for you now!"

Coming out of my reverie on the subject of
the State Funeral, I looked about me, and
said "Where?"

"Where? " cries he, quite boisterously,
"Everywhere!"

"Except," says I, in my quiet way, "in
Cheapside, I suppose."

"Except in Cheapside? " says he. " Why,
there are sometimes three tons of gold a day
passing through one house close by here."

Three tons of gold a day!—Tons! I should
have staggered against the tree, if the iron
railings would have admitted of it.

"Except in Cheapside? " says he again.
"Why, one customer of that house has
dealings with it to the extent of a million a
month! What the business of that house
will be, passes human calculation. There are
ships on the sea now, sailing away for England
as fast as they can carry on, with millions
stowed away in their holds! The gold they
bring from Australia is so pure that
Nature has thrown the Refiners here out of
the refining branch of their business, and all
they have to do, is, to cast it into golden
ingots, value eight hundred pounds sterling
each. It is one carat and three quarters
above the standard, which is twenty-two
carats! While the value of standard gold
is three pound seventeen and tenpence half-
penny an ounce, and the value of Californian
gold is below it, the value of Australian gold
is from four pound one and sixpence to four
pound two an ounce! Whooroop, whooroo!"

I should observe that my friend is not of
Irish extraction. His excitement alarmed me.

"Whooroop!" says he again, in defiance of
me; and I am at a loss to express how very
inconsistent the exclamation appeared with
his neat white cravat, and his gold watch-
chain. "When the house close by here, sent
the first two bars of Australian gold to the
Bank of England, the Bank of England sent
them back, supposing from their purity that
there must be some mistake. When the
house close by here, was first established,
gold was calculated in their accounts by the
pound; it is calculated now by the ton.
Then, their premises were thought much too
large; now, they are far too small. Then,
gold lace was in fashion, and the making
of gold wire was a most important, section
of the business. Now, the making of gold-
wire has been abandoned as a waste of
time." And again he concluded with
"Whooroo!"

I have the reputation, and I hope I deserve
it, of being naturally polite; but, all this
being a little too much for me, I plainly said
"I don't believe it."

Says he, immediately, "Seeing is believing.
Come and see it."

After hearing of those tons of gold, I should
not have been very much surprised if he had
proceeded according to the precedents in the
thousand and one nights; if he had desired
me to collect a few dried sticks and leaves in
Cheapside; if I had done so; if he had made
a fire, cast in some powder from his vest,
caused the earth to shake and open, a trapdoor
with a ring in it to appear, and had
taken me down into "the house close by,"
which I should have found, with no particular
astonishment, to be a cave, as light as day
from excess of gold and silver, supported by
golden statues, and guarded by submissive
Genii. He did nothing of all this. He
merely took me by the arm—in Cheapside,
London—on the first of November eighteen
hundred and fifty-two—under the very
shadow of the Lord Mayor, Court of Aldermen,
and Common Council, in whom there
is no enchantment whatever, but quite
the contrary—and turned me straight down
Wood Street, among the bales, and waggons,
and business men, of a busy street not
wider than many a dining-room, with a pavement
no wider than many a dinner-table: we
threatened with the descent of great woollen
bales upon our heads, and saving ourselves
by a leap from being crushed under an
avalanche of empty hampers tumbling down a
mountain of waggon.

So we came, or I dreamed it (which I
am sure I did not) to certain premises
having a certain number. The number
was our only guide; no name of firm, or
notification of the business done within,
caused us to pass under an archway, which
led into a little court, with a pump of
mere mortal construction in the middle.
There was a private house on one side, business-
house on the other side, entrance at the
centre by a large door into a lowering stone
hall like a brewery. Everything quiet, dingy,
common-place, with a few carboys of aqua
fortis scattered about. Directed by a housemaid,
who was scrubbing down some stairs
on one side of the court—she made no mysterious
appearance or disappearance, and
pronounced no cabalistic words—we crossed
over to a common counting-house, and not a
very clean one either.

But, not to mention the Treasure-Room
within, where a jet of gas kept watch and
ward upon trucks of silver and gold, here, in
this counting-house, were uncountable scoops
set forth, containing Australian gold, weighed
out ready to be cast, and looking exactly like
the kernels of golden walnuts, irregularly
broken up into various-sized pieces: some very