'CUTE, IF TRUE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1868, 3 February 1892, Page 6

'CUTE, IF TRUE.

A Melbourne paper tells a story of the adventures of one of the depositors in the fallen Metropolitan Bank. He had heard rumors of tbe approaching collapse, and fled in terror into the city to withdraw his deposit of L3OO. The teller met him with an affable smile, and paid him in the bank's own notes — if he had asked for gold the establishment 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 the Metropolitan burst the Metropolitan notes were just as valuable as brown wrapping paper. There was no time to get back before closing time, so he rushed into the nearest branch bank and tried to open an account with the alleged assets. But the branch declined them, and he was left standing dismally in the street with JL3OO worth of valueless notes in his palsied hand. Then he started to get rid of them systematically. He plodded round from one shop to another buying sixpennyworths 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 in the gutter. And finally, about midnight, be trotted home himself, worn to rags, dusty, almost speechless, and with the soles walked off his boots, but triumphantly humping L 292 10s of small change in a hired barrow. Next day the bank closed up.