It was about midday. I’d left work early in the morning to cash a cheque. I walked along to the bank, and found that there weren’t too many people about ten or eleven customers in there, which was pretty unusual for those central city banks. I waited until it was my turn and just went up to the desk and started to talk to the bank clerk. He had a really strange expression on his face -- just sort of blank stare at least I thought he was looking at me and then I realized he was staring over my shoulder. I began to turn round to see what he was looking at. At the same moment the outside bank guard came flying through the door and lay face down on the floor and following him through the door were three frightening masked men. They were carrying guns; at least I think the one in front was carrying a gun. Whether or not they said anything at that point I can’t remember to this day, or whether people just automatically put their hands up I’ve just no idea. For a few moments there was just total silence, suddenly broken by the telephone ringing and I remember thinking and wondering who was on the other end of the telephone. Nobody went to answer the telephone, so this thing just kept on ringing and ringing. Then two of the masked men went to the counter, jumped over it and got the cashiers and the bank clerks to start filling the bags with cash. While the two were getting the money, the one at the door who was covering us with the gun was a bit frightened. He started swearing at them, and telling them to hurry up, to get a move on. They jumped back over the counter. One of them slipped as he landed on the floor and fell over and the other two swore at him again. They left through the door. Warning us, “Don’t move, stay like that with your hands up for ten minutes.” And then they just disappeared. Again back to total silence. People put their hands down, I put my hands down but I just stayed exactly where I was. 小题1:What does the writer mean by saying “…a pretty unusual number for those central banks” in the first paragraph?
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