The Hand of Petrarch, and Other Stories (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1913. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CREDIT AT DUNSTAN'S EVERY householder of the West End knows Dunstan's by name as well as by sight. And even the stranger, lurching down the Strand on the knife-board of his omnibus, looks up at the gray walls of the private bank with an air of respectful familiarity in the very moment of identification. Thereafter, though these walls bear no signboards, they need none for him. He recognizes a monumental importance in that strongholdof financial integrity, standing like a Parisian hotel of the old regime between its court and its garden. And there it has stood so long in honorable self-reliance that by common consent the descriptive part of its title has been dropped, leaving it to be known as a possession of the founder, who thus outlives his life two centuries. Not as Dunstan's Bank, but as Dunstan's, pure and simple, does the enterprise to which he committed himself in King William's time maintain its enviable place among the lesser landmarks of London. Almost at the beginning of my apprenticeship with the very young American banking firm of Markham & Wade, I had been sent over to Dunstan's on some trifling errand, --to get an acceptance, probably, --for their bills often passed through our hands; and I have a clear remembrance of the impression then made upon me by the spacious panelled rooms; the green-baize doors, swinging noiselessly; the mullioned windows, deeply recessed, through which, over a gnarled old hawthorn tree, slanted a misty gleam from the Thames. All these appointments had an air of completeness, a time-honored effect indicating perfect fitness of the means to the end, and thus contrasting strangely with our own close quarters, hastily adapted to our needs on a short lease until we could find something better. I knew even then in a general way .