Reflections in a Safe Deposit Vault

EVER since I have been a client of a safety deposit company, I have been conscious of an attendant sadness upon entering their sombre chambers, and on a recent call, made for the purpose of cutting back a few flowering coupons still blooming in this sixth year of the Great Depression, I was even more deeply affected than usual, so much so that I halted my pruning activities long enough to jot down a few notes upon one of those white income-tax slips, Treasury Department Form 1000, from which brief outline I now elaborate.

In the first place, the close atmosphere is very similar, though somewhat warmer and dryer, to that of a receiving vault, the prevailing quiet and plain severity of the interior are suggestive of the same, while the tiers of metal containers are reminiscent of the wall niches provided for the accommodation of the dead. Again, turning to the contents of the strong boxes, sarcophagi of those catacombs of treasure, there is, to me, something very sobering about a bond with its attached semiannual reminders of the passage of time, and bearing its date of maturity, at first seemingly remote but relentlessly approaching, which compels comparison with my own expectancy. Shall I live to cut the last coupon?

Influenced by like thoughts, I once made the remark to a friend that a bond had ever seemed to me a sad instrument, whereupon he replied, ‘I entirely agree with you and understand your feelings perfectly, but you must admit that some bonds are sadder than others.’

In any such discussion it would constitute a grave oversight to omit those doleful entrances for the purpose of extracting securities to be sold, in order to meet bills for living expenses by drawing upon principal assets, or in connection with calls for additional collateral. And there are even more dreary associations; so intimate is the relationship between these halls and death that a visit to them is among the earliest excursions to be made by the heirs and survivors of any late box holder. I am ever sardonically amused by the aspect of a bereaved widow, swathed in crape, entering the dismal precincts, beginning, as it were, to take financial notice.

Thus musing, I continue somewhat absently to snip off the fleeting years, six months at a whack, which drop like autumn leaves, but with two falls per annum. Were I more of an optimist, I suppose I might regard them from a happier and more cheerful point of view, considering them rather as ripe fruit to be garnered for the sweetness and nourishment which they so abundantly afford; but for me the cloud remains, and will, I fear, remain even unto my last trip to clip Coupon No.—?