“As might be expected, the chief magistrate of the town (my most honoured guest) approached me after dinner and told me privately that he would be happy to oblige. I told him there was no sort of necessity, I could draw what I would on my letters from home, or at any rate enough to meet the case. That if he really cared to share my little adventure I expected about ten percent profit on the sum engaged—but indeed it was too small for me to trouble him with it. I accepted his pledge of 100 pieces of gold—but I stoutly refused any paper, ‘Your name is enough,’ I said, ‘I shall gratefully use it. My people will trust my word.’
“I gave out next morning that I was going into the hills to meet a messenger. I did indeed pass through the city gate and proceeded till I was well out of sight; but as there was no sense in fatiguing myself I slept through the heat in a wood, watched through the warm night, and returned travel-stained in the evening of the second day.
“On the morning of the third day I met the chief magistrate in the bazaar: I stopped him, chatted, and then and there paid him eleven pieces of gold. ‘I met my messenger from Tambulistan’ (said I) ‘we exchanged parcels, and I find I have netted just over the ten percent. These eleven pieces are your proportion upon your kind investment of 100.’ He protested of course that it had been no investment, merely a few friendly words of support; but he took the money, and I could see that he was pleased. He was curiously pleased. Indeed, he was so pleased that, though a discreet man, he could not forbear mentioning the matter to his wife. Rich men love small windfalls.
“In a few hours, therefore, the head mufti, the chief of the guard, and two very important councillors had in their various ways touched casually upon the wheat trade during short conversations in which each had separately engaged me under the shades of the bazaar. A little later, as I took the air by the riverside at evening, the principal ascetic of the district, who had come in to buy his few lentils for the week, spoke to me briefly of the same matter. I gave each of them a different answer, alluding to various cargoes of wheat, caravans of wheat and tumbrils of wheat—all in technical terms; to risks, to covering sums, to transfers from one district to another. In each case I refused anything but a pledge to stand in with a transaction somewhat beyond my unaided powers; in each case I ridiculed the smallness of the little adventure; in each case I paid, after the lapse of a few days, to one a single piece of gold as his profit, to another two, to another three. And each was very pleased.
“As the days went by I varied the procedure. Sometimes I regretted the unexpectedly small profit obtained. Once I deliberately announced a loss and sternly gathered reluctant contributions from my associates; but immediately afterwards I did another fine stroke in imaginary wheat and paid a fat dividend to my friends—indeed, that particular affair cost me twenty-five pieces. But it was worth it. I got rid in less than a month of 200 pieces of gold in this fashion. It was a cruel trial, but proved, in the event, most fruitful. For though I would never advise in large investments, yet by this simple method, my reputation for judgment in that which men most value—which is money—was assured.
“I had set 250 pieces aside for this experiment, and my total stock was running low when I steered my ship to port.
“First, out of my remainder, I brought to the city council fifty pieces of gold saying that I had with difficulty screwed them from my young friend, who was still digging away in the outskirts, but that he had faithfully promised the second fifty in two months’ time. Next I created a sort of stupor in the now large circle of my friends by saying publicly and boldly that I was beginning to see something in this plan of draining the marsh. I reminded them that the engineer had always been my friend, that I had always seen something in him, that in spite of his obvious lack of business sense I could not help admiring his talent in his own line.
“The place was by this time dried and levelled, the embankment was all fairly sloped and paved, the cuttings, heaps, and rubbish had disappeared. Then it was that I took a party of these my important friends out to view the place at evening from the city walls and quietly told them that it was mine.
“There it lay before them: a magnificent plain, reclaimed and ordered, firm land pegged out in rows and with neat placards of new streets, all named.
“You know, my dear nephews, the admiration excited in all men of affairs for one who has forestalled them. I rose in the
