A Good Lie

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 89, 26 January 1892, Page 3

A Good Lie

A Melbourne paper tells a story of the adventures of one of the depositors in the fallen Metropolitan Bank. He bad heard rumors of the approaching collapse, and fled in terror into the city to withdraw his deposit of £300. The teller met him with an affable ■mile, and paid. him in the bank* own notes— if he had asked for gold the. establtsfcif&nt would have closed there and then— and he went on his way; rejoicing. He had got about two miles on. the road home when the horrible thought occurred to him that if thai Metropolitan burst the Metropolitan note* were just as valuable as brown wrapping paper. There was no time fy' get. back before closing time, -so he "rushed into the nearest branch fcalpk and tried to open an account^riih the alleged assets. But the braqeh declined them, land he was left jtAnding dismally, in the street witbjEdOO worth of valueless notes in his palsied hand. Then he started to gefffid of them .systematically. He plodded round from one shop to jtoother buying sixnennyworths of anything and everything, and taking 19s 6d change on each transaction. "When he got loaded down he either hired- a light porter to take the rubbish home or else threw them into the gutter. And finally, about midnight, he trotted home himself, worn to rags, dusty, almost speechless, and with the soles walked off his boots, but triumphantly humping £292 10s of small change in a hired barrow. Next day the bank closed.