In all
other cities, people eat at home or at a hotel or an eating-house; in
Washington they eat at bank. But they do not eat money,--at least, not
in the form of bullion, or specie, or notes. These Washington banks,
unlike those of London, Paris, and New York, are open mainly at night
and all night long, are situated invariably in the second story, guarded
as jealously as any seraglio, and admit nobody but strangers,--that is
to say, everybody in Washington. This is singular. Still more singular
is the fact, that the best food, served in the most exquisite manner,
and (with sometimes a slight variation) the choicest wines and cigars,
may be had at these banks free of cost, except to those who choose
voluntarily to remunerate the banker by purchasing a commodity as costly
and almost as worthless as the articles sold at ladies' fairs,--upon
which principle, indeed, the Washington banks are conducted. The
commodity alluded to is in the form of small discs of ivory, called
"chips" or "cheeks" or "shad" or "skad," and the price varies from
twenty-five cents to a hundred dollars per "skad.
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