“Why, Lucy,” said he, “I keep your money, just as all bankers do the money they have on deposit.”
“Deposit?” repeated Lucy.
“Yes,” replied her father. “Money that is placed in any body’s hands for safe-keeping is said to be a deposit. Your money is deposited with me.”
“Yes, sir,” said Lucy. So far she understood very well.
“Now, when money is deposited with a banker, he does not keep that identical money separate from the rest.”
“I don’t know what you mean by identical money,” said Lucy.
“Why, the same money,—the very same.”
“And doesn’t he keep the money, then, at all?”
“No, not separately; he mixes it with his own money, and pays it away, just as he does his own.”
“I shouldn’t think he ought to do that,” said Lucy, “if it was deposited with him for safe-keeping.”