“In this way I rapidly repaid myself and also took one piece on every hundred others had subscribed. The learned men of the place, who had never before imagined so simple and practical a plan, treated me with almost supernatural reverence. I was consulted upon every operation of war, my guarantee was eagerly sought for in other financial ventures, and I was able, I am glad to say, to secure other commissions without touching a penny of my treasure—I had but to hold it forth as a proof of good faith.
“The enemy was repelled. But victory was not won. The war dragged on for a year and there was no decision. Gold grew scarce, and again the government was in despair.
“I easily relieved them. ‘Write,’ I said, ‘promises on paper to be repaid in gold.’ They did as I advised—paying me (at my request) a trifle of half a million for the advice. I handled the affair—on a merely nominal profit. I punctually met for another year every note that was paid in. But too many were presented, for the war seemed unending and entered a third year.
“Then did I conceive yet another stupendous thing. ‘Bid them,’ said I to the sultan, ‘take the notes as money. Cease to repay. Write, not “I will on delivery of this paper pay a piece of gold,” but, “this is a piece of gold.” ’
“He did as I told him. The next day the vizier came to me with the story of an insolent fellow to whom fifty such notes had been offered as payment for a camel for the war and who had sent back, not a camel, but another piece of paper on which was written ‘This is a camel.’
“ ‘Cut off his head!’ said I.
“It was done, and the warning sufficed. The paper was taken and the war proceeded.
“It was I that prepared the notes, and on each batch I exacted my necessary commission, my little commission, my due.
“It was not in my nature, dear nephews, how ever, in those days of hard and honest work, to lie idle. When I had put the sultan on his legs it occurred to me that the enemy’s government was also very probably in similar straits. I therefore visited the enemy’s capital by a roundabout route, and concluded with the vizier of that opulent but agitated state a similar bargain.
“The war thus replenished at its sources raged with redoubled ardour, for ten more years, and. …”
“But, uncle,” said the fourth nephew, who was an athlete and somewhat stupid, and who had heard of this double negotiation with round eyes, “surely they must have both been very angry with you!”
The excellent Mahmoud raised his left hand in protest. “Dear lad!” cried he, “how little you know the world! Angry? Why, each regarded me in the first place as a genius whose ways it was impossible to unravel, in the second place as a public necessity, in the third as a benefactor arrived at a miraculous moment; and as for the fact that I was aiding both sides, I have only to tell you that among the people of that region it is thought the proper part of all financiers to act in this fashion. I should have been treated with deserved contempt had I betrayed any scruples upon so simple a matter. Nay, I am sure that either party reposed the greater trust in me from the fact that my operations were thus universal. … But to proceed:
“The Mercy of Allah was never more apparent in my career than in the way these two sultans and their subjects fought like raging dogs upon the proceeds of those loans which the wealthy citizens upon either side had provided, and upon the mountains of paper which I spent half the day in signing.
“These loans increased ten, twenty, thirty-fold. It was always I that guaranteed them; I had not to risk or expend one miserable dinar of my horde, and yet yearly my commission came rolling in, in larger and larger amounts, until at last the arduous but glorious campaigns were terminated in the total exhaustion of one of the two combatants (at this distance of time I forget which), and his territory and capital were laid under an enormous indemnity (which I again financed without the tedium of myself producing any actual metal of my own). As the beaten state might have repudiated its obligations I was careful to meet the patriotic clamours of the victorious populace, and to see that the territory of the vanquished should be annexed. You appreciate the situation, my dear fellow?” said the aged Mahmoud conversationally to his eldest nephew.
“I think so, uncle,” said the lad doubtfully, screwing up his face.
“It is quite simple,” said the wealthy old man, clearing his throat. “The peoples of both states (now happily united) were taxed to their utmost capacity; the one strong and united government guaranteed a regular revenue; a proportion of this revenue was annually distributed as a fixed income to the wealthy few who had subscribed my loans; another portion, amounting by this time annually to considerably more than my original capital, was retained in my coffers; and the mechanism of this was the more simple from the fact that all the public revenues passed through my own hands as state banker before any surplus was handed over to the crown.”
The old man ceased. His benevolent lips were murmuring a prayer.
At this moment the hideous call for prayer from the minaret would no longer be denied, and the seven boys, plunged in profound thought, retired slowly to the poverty-stricken home of the physician, their father. They found him tired out with having sat up all night at the sickbed of a howling dervish, who in his last dying whisper (and that a hoarse one), had confessed his total inability to pay the customary fee.
