Anne's terrible good nature, and other stories for children

by E. V. Lucas

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A
SHILLING

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A
SHILLING

Has it ever occurred to you through how many hands a piece of money passes in the course of a day, a week, a month, and what it does for its owners during that time? I am fortunately in the position to be able to tell you of the adventures of a shilling of my acquaintance during a single day; and the story will show you how busy a piece of silver can be.

“Let me see, you want an ordinary day,” the shilling said. “Of course, sometimes I am not busy at all—I just lie all the time in a till or a drawer at the Bank (we hate being at the Bank on Sundays), or I may belong for the time being to a miser, or I may be locked up in a money-box. (Children have no notion how irksome it is to an active intelligent coin to be put away in a dark money-box for weeks and weeks, with no recreation but an occasional rattle.) But I will tell you my adventures on a rather special day on which I not only went to church, but to a race-meeting, and was lost into the bargain. I was not busier then than I have been at other times, but I had rather more ups and downs than a day usually sees.

“When I woke it was quite light, and as I lay on the dressing-table with all the other coins the sunshine came through the chinks of the blind and made me pleasantly warm. Not so warm as I am in a pocket, but still very comfortable, especially as I had been cold in the night.

“It was a new room to me, and I was very glad to see it, or, indeed, to see anything again, since for nearly a year I had been locked up in a little girl’s money-box, with no one to talk to but a few low pennies and a very rude little threepenny bit, who squeaked his impertinences into my ear all day long. Every now and then another penny would come tumbling in among us with a crash, sometimes bruising us horribly, but never any real gentlefolk, not even a sixpence. Luckily, however, this little girl’s mother had the sense to have a birthday, and so at last I was taken out, to be exchanged at a flower-shop for a pot of musk.

“I lay in the flower-shop till for an hour or so, and then a nice-looking gentleman with grey hair came in for some pink carnations for a lady on Campden Hill, and I was given to him as change. He put me in his pocket, and there I remained till he came home, when I was placed on the dressing-table with all the other coins.

“I was the only shilling, the others being a very old half-crown, quite deaf and short-tempered, a tired florin, some more vulgar pennies (pennies can be very coarse), and a sovereign, who was too proud even to look at us and at once went to sleep.

“I don’t know what I should have done for company had it not been for a very affable silver-backed hair-brush on the table close to me, who told me one or two interesting stories of his youth and the grand people he used to see when he was lying in a Bond-Street window. He was in the midst of the romance of a very giddy tortoiseshell comb whom he had once loved, when the gentleman got up and began to brush his hair, and when he set the brush down again it was too far off for conversation. These are the little things that human beings do not think of, but which mean so much to us. We always like to be put close together according to our metal, gold near gold, silver near silver, and so on, and we like, also, to keep near our own values too—half-crowns near half-crowns, and pennies near pennies (although now and then I will admit I have heard some very funny and enlightening things from copper, even from halfpennies, although it is true that they do drop their h’s and are often exceedingly unwashed).

“Well, to get on with my story: when the gentleman had finished dressing he put us all into his pockets again and went downstairs. Me he put in his left-hand trouser pocket with the half-crown and the florin; the pennies in his right, and the sovereign in his waistcoat. And here let me say that it is much more comfortable to be a man’s money than a woman’s. Men put us in their pockets and keep us cosy: women put us in purses, where we can hardly breathe.