Mahmoud mused and continued:
“But let us return to my further activities in that far land:
“I next designed a scheme whereby every form of human misfortune, fire, disease, paralysis, madness, and the rest, might be alleviated to the sufferer by the payment of regular sums of money upon the advent of the disaster; weekly sums for his support if he were rendered infirm or ill, a lump sum to replace whatever he might have totally lost, and so forth. A short and easy survey of the average number of times in which such accidents took place permitted me to establish my system. I charged for 100 dinars worth of such insurance 110 dinars, and my benevolence was praised even more highly than my ingenuity.
“Men flocked in thousands, and at last in millions, to secure themselves from the uncertainty of human life by giving me of their free will more money in regular payments than I could by any accident be compelled to pay out to any one of them upon his reaching old age, his suffering from fire, or his contraction of an illness. Nay, death itself at last entered into this design, and having found that young men just of age live upon the average for forty years, I asked them to pay for their heirs annual sums calculated as though that period were thirty, and thus I continued to accumulate wealth from a perennial source.”
“But why,” began one of his nephews excitedly. …
“Why what?” asked his uncle, severely.
“Why,” said the poor lad, a little abashed by his uncle’s tone, “why did they pay you more for a thing than it was worth?”
Mahmoud stroked his long white beard and looked up sideways towards the highly decorated vault of the gorgeous apartment. He remained thus plunged in thought for perhaps thirty seconds, and when he broke the silence it was to say that he did not know. “But no matter—” he added hurriedly. “I paid for a law which compelled all slaves to insure and so was certain of a fixed revenue in this kind.
“And I had many other resources,” he continued cheerily. “If those who had made many such regular payments to me to insure against death, old age, disease, and the rest, happened to fall into an embarrassed condition and to need a loan, I was always ready to advance them their own money again at interest, or did I ever find them unwilling to subscribe the bond. Further I urged and tempted many to fall into arrears and so possessed myself of all they had paid in. The vast sums paid to me in these various fashions were sometimes too great for investment within the state, and I had to look further afield. But here again by the Mercy of Allah suggestions of the most lucrative sort perpetually occurred to my religious soul.
“Not infrequently I would lay out a million or two in the purchase of a great estate situated at some distance which, when I had acquired it, I would declare to be packed with gold, silver, diamonds, copper, salt, and china clay beneath the earth, and on its surface loaded with red pepper and other most precious fruits. I have no doubt these estates were often of a promising nature, though travellers have assured me that some were mere desert; in one case, to my certain knowledge, the estate did not even exist. But it really mattered little whether I spoke truly or falsely with regard to such ventures, for my method of dealing with them made them, whether they were of trifling value or of more, invariably profitable to many besides myself and a blessing to the whole state.”
“But uncle,” interjected another nephew, “how could that be?”
“You will easily see,” said Mahmoud with a pitying smile, “when you hear the sequel. I was not so selfish as to retain these properties in my own hands. I would offer them to the public for sale, and being in a position to pay many poets, scribes, and public story tellers who should make general the praises of the estates in question, an active competition among many thousands would arise to become part purchasers. In the presence of this competition the price of a share, or part property, would rise; those who had bought early would sell later to others at a profit, and these to others again at a further profit still; an active buying and selling of these part properties in my ventures thus became a fixed habit in the intelligent people of the place, and those who were left ultimately the possessors of the actual estates in question, whether real or imaginary, were only the more foolish and ignorant of the population. Their agonized denouncement of my judgment (as they wandered from one to another attempting to dispose of their bad bargains) was, of course, treated with contempt by the run of able men who remembered the profits of the share market at the inception of the business. On this account it was possible for me to continue indefinitely to present for sale to the public every species of venture which I might feel inclined to put before them: the intelligent and successful were ever my applauders; the unfortunate and despised alone decried me. And these were, on account of my operations, so poor, and therefore of so little significance in the state, that I rarely
