William

Mr. William R. McGlover's hobby was collecting money, and he took it very seriously. Every other week he carried his paycheck from his office to the local bank to redeem his prize. There the teller, Rachel, would stand patiently over a pile of bills while William made his picks. He liked one dollar bills and ten dollar bills, and also found fifties and one-hundreds attractive. His favorite, however, was the twenty; the good old double-sawbuck.

His ritual was to walk home, place his briefcase on his desk, and pull each bill from its pouch for examination. William would sit at his desk over a magnifying glass for hours admiring the microtext and tiny intricate designs of each bill. He was particularly fond of Jackson's portrait; his disheveled hair and serious expression. Focusing on his right eyebrow, Jackson almost looks sad, like a severely disciplined but misunderstood puppy. "What could he be thinking?" William would ask himself, head hunched, pressed against the glass.

He began by storing the bills in the drawers of an old card catalog he salvaged from the local library. After examination each was carefully placed, neatly sorted by serial number and year. He took such care of his bills that not one had so much as a fold or blemish. To him, each one was priceless.

Rachel had grown fond of William's visits and knew when to expect him. She would have the bills waiting when he arrived; always two hundreds, four fifties, and twenty twenties, then some fives and ones. Over the years he continued to choose from the same lot, although the number of fives and ones would increase from time to time. William became increasingly discriminating, and over the years his visits grew longer. Eventually the bank reserved a desk for William, who would pour over the bills as Rachel presented them, sometimes for over an hour.

After a decade of saving William was able to afford a more sophisticated filing bureau and invested in a climate control system, which he built himself. He spent weeks walking back and forth to the hardware store purchasing the duct work and other supplies, painstakingly assembling the system. When he was finally done, temperature and humidity were optimized for paper storage. By this time, William's collection had expanded to fill several cabinets.

After one trip to the bank, Rachel asked William if he'd like to get some coffee. Neither the quantity nor quality of William's collection improved after that. And he didn't seem to mind.