The house of Heine Brothers, in Munich, was of good repute at the time of which I am about to tell,—a time not long ago; and is so still, I trust.  It was of good repute in its own way, seeing that no man doubted the word or solvency¹ of Heine Brothers; but they did not possess, as bankers, what would in England be considered a large or profitable business.  The operations of English bankers are bewildering in their magnitude.  Legions of clerks are employed.  The senior book-keepers, though only salaried servants, are themselves great men; while the real partners are inscrutable, mysterious, opulent beyond measure, and altogether unknown to their customers.  Take any firm at random,—Brown, Jones, and Cox, let us say,—the probability is that Jones has been dead these fifty years, that Brown is a Cabinet Minister, and that Cox is master of a pack of hounds in Leicestershire.  But it was by no means so with the house of Heine Brothers, of Munich.  There they were, the two elderly men, daily to be seen at their dingy² office in the Schrannen Platz; and if any business was to be transacted³ requiring the interchange of more than a word or two, it was the younger brother with whom the customer was, as a matter of course, brought into contact.  There were three clerks in the establishment; an old man, namely, who sat with the elder brother and had no personal dealings with the public; a young Englishman, of whom we shall anon hear more; and a boy who ran messages, put the wood on to the stoves, and swept out the bank.  Truly he house of Heine Brothers was of no great importance; but nevertheless it was of good repute.