Explore "A Day in the Life of a Shilling" by E.V. Lucas on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Has it ever occurred to you through how many hands a piece of money passes in the course of a day, a week, a month, and what it does for its owners during that time? I am fortunately in the position to be able to tell you of the adventures of a shilling of my acquaintance during a single day; and the story will show you how busy a piece of silver can be.
"Let me see, you want an ordinary day," the shilling said. "Of course, sometimes I am not busy at all -- I just lie all the time in a till or a drawer at the Bank (we hate being at the Bank on Sundays), or I may belong for the time being to a miser, or I may be locked up in a money-box. (Children have no notion how irksome it is to an active intelligent coin to be put away in a dark money-box for weeks and weeks, with no recreation but an occasional rattle.) But I will tell you my adventures on a rather special day on which I not only went to church, but to a race-meeting, and was lost into the bargain. I was not busier then than I have been at other times, but I had rather more ups and downs than a day usually sees.