the silver piece. Thus, therefore, both, the arrangement of the positions and the difference of cut, determines what is gold and what is silver. But thou shalt learn all this more conveniently by looking at it than by hearing of it.
D. What remains of this will be made clear by ocular demonstration. Now, if it please thee, proceed concerning the offices.
M. After him, as we said above, a few discreet men who are delegated by the king coming in between, sits he who, by command of the king makes computations by the placing of coins used as counters. This office iudeed is perplexing and laborious enough; and, without it, seldom or never could the business of the exchequer be carried on; but it belongs officially to none of those who sit there, but to him to whom the king or the Justice shall give it to fill. Laborious, I say, for other offices are filled Toy the tongue or the hand, this by both; in it " the hand, the tongue and the eye, and the mind are unwearied in labour."
As to the Calculator.
This is his business: according to the usual course of the exchequer, not according to arithmetical laws. Thou wilt remember, I presume, my saying that on the exchequer was placed a cloth divided by stripes, in the spaces of which heaps of cash are placed. Now the calculator sits in the middle of the side, that he may be visible to all, and that his busy hand may have free course. He has placed already at his right hand, in the lower space, a heap of pennies from 11 down; in the second, of shillings from 19 down; but in the third, of pounds. And this heap, indeed, ought to be opposite and directly facing him, for in the ordinary accounts of the sheriff it is the medium; in the fourth is the heap of the twenties; in the fifth, of the hundreds; in the sixth, of the thousands; in the seventh, but rarely, of the ten thousands of pounds; rarely, I say, that is when, through the king or his mandate, the account for the receipts of the whole kingdom is received by the nobles of the kingdom from the treasurer and the chamberlains. Moreover, it is lawful for the calculator to put
