Out of the Bag

From his gypsy forebears, John Miller inherited an idiosyncratic custom. For four generations, the Millers have carefully guarded a small green leather pouch containing coins and a knotted red cloth, that was said to keep ill fortune from the family as long as it remained unopened. Miller, a boiler repairman in Tempe, Ariz., protected himself by storing the pouch in a safe deposit box in the vaults of the Tempe branch of the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Phoenix.

Then the bank, through clerical error, thought that Miller had failed to pay his $6 annual rental fee. Bank employees drilled open the box and untied the pouch's drawstring in order to take inventory. The devils were loosed--or so Miller claimed in a $15,000 suit he filed against the bank. Miller's two teen-aged daughters ran away, and another daughter and son are about to break up their marriages. Now, as if to prove the point, Miller has won a $10 court settlement for his misfortunes--after the bank had tentatively offered to settle out of court for $1,000.

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