Here’s how they do it: during the normal course of business, lots of paper money will pass over the counters of (say) Chase Manhattan Bank. They’ll take it into a back room and sort it, throwing into money boxes (a couple of feet square and a yard deep, with ropes on the four corners) all of the bills that were printed by (say) Bank of America in one, all of the City Bank bills into another. Then, on Friday afternoon they will bring in coolies. Each coolie, or pair of coolies, will of course have his great big long bamboo pole with him—a coolie without his pole is like a China Marine without his nickel-plated bayonet—and will poke their pole through the ropes on the corners of the box. Then one coolie will get underneath each end of the pole, hoisting the box into the air. They have to move in unison or else the box begins flailing around and everything gets out of whack. So as they head towards their destination—whatever bank whose name is printed on the bills in their box—they sing to each other, and plant their feet on the pavement in time to the music. The pole’s pretty long, so they are that far apart, and they have to sing loud to hear each other, and of course each pair of coolies in the street is singing their own particular song, trying to drown out all of the others so that they don’t get out of step.