Within, the offices were newly plastered, newly painted,
newly papered, newly countered, newly floor-clothed, newly tabled, newly
chaired, newly fitted up in every way, with goods that were substantial
and expensive, and designed (like the company) to last. Business! Look
at the green ledgers with red backs, like strong cricket-balls beaten
flat; the court-guides directories, day-books, almanacks, letter-boxes,
weighing-machines for letters, rows of fire-buckets for dashing out a
conflagration in its first spark, and saving the immense wealth in notes
and bonds belonging to the company; look at the iron safes, the clock,
the office seal--in its capacious self, security for anything. Solidity!
Look at the massive blocks of marble in the chimney-pieces, and the
gorgeous parapet on the top of the house! Publicity! Why, Anglo-Bengalee
Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance company is painted on the very
coal-scuttles. It is repeated at every turn until the eyes are dazzled
with it, and the head is giddy. It is engraved upon the top of all the
letter paper, and it makes a scroll-work round the seal, and it shines
out of the porter's buttons, and it is repeated twenty times in every
circular and public notice wherein one David Crimple, Esquire, Secretary
and resident Director, takes the liberty of inviting your attention
to the accompanying statement of the advantages offered by the
Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company; and fully
proves to you that any connection on your part with that establishment
must result in a perpetual Christmas Box and constantly increasing Bonus
to yourself, and that nobody can run any risk by the transaction except
the office, which, in its great liberality is pretty sure to lose.
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