RATES OF EXCHANGE.
Jones was reading his morning paper in the opposite corner seat with unusual attention, and he disregarded my greeting.
"Why this absorption?" I inquired. "Usually you come to the station with a piece of toast behind one ear, fastening your boots as you run, and wake us all up with your first fine morning rapture."
"I was just taking a look at the exchanges," he replied. "The mark's about the same price as fly-paper, and, judging by the news from New York, your chewing-gum is going to cost you more shortly. Do you know anything about the money market?"
"I occasionally see it stated that 'money is plentiful' in it," I returned. "I should think it must be an ideal place."
"The most gorgeous thing in the world is to make a bit on exchange," he said. "There's such a splendid feeling of not having earned it, you know."
"I understand exactly," I replied. "Cox once credited me with an extra month's pay by mistake. But I didn't realise that you ever had to think about money matters after having run our Mess in France."
He appeared to take no offence. His capacity for being insulted in that direction had probably been exhausted during the period in point.
"I know quite a lot about exchange," he remarked with a reminiscent smile. "You remember that when I got pipped in France in '15, they sent me out next time to Salonica. I hadn't been there very long before the question of exchange cropped up. In the early days most of us had English money only, and the villagers used to rook us frightfully changing it. I remember sending my batman, MacGusgogh, to a place for eggs, and he came back with the change for my Bradbury in nickel. I had a good look at it, and on each coin was the mystic inscription, 'DIHAP,' which is pronounced 'dinar.'
"'MacGusgogh,' I said, 'you pretend to be a Scotsman and yet you've been diddled. This is Serbian money, and not worth a bean.'
"'Oh the deceitfu' deevils,' said he, 'there's neither truth nor honesty in the leein' buddies, Sir. But here's your Bradbury, an', at onny rate, we hae the eggs, Sir, for I paid for them wi' a label off yin o' they Japaneesy beer bottles. It seemed an awfu' waste to spend guid siller on folk that dinna ken when they see it.'"
I began to see the possibilities of the money market.
"I was round about there till the Armistice," Jones went on, "then I drifted by stages to South Russia. All the Eastern countries live by exchange. Practically the only trade they have is playing tennis with each others' currency, and the headquarters of the industry in 1918 was South Russia. I thought I'd seen the limit of low finance when I'd experienced the franc, lira, drachma, dinar, lev and piastre; but they were all child's play to the rouble in 1918."
"I thought Russian money was all dud before that," I remarked.
"Not a bit of it," said Jones. "You see, it's not as if there were one breed, so to speak, of rouble. There were Kerensky roubles, and Duma roubles, and Nicholas roubles, and every little town had a rouble-works which was turning out local notes as hard as they, could go. I missed a fortune there by inches."
"Tell me," I said, in response to his anecdotal eye.
"I had a job there which consisted of going backwards and forwards on the railway between Otwiski and Triadropoldir in the Caucasus, a six days' trip. The possibilities of the situation never struck me till one day I, asked a shopman in Triadropoldir to give me my change in Otwiski roubles—both towns had their own currency, of course. He gave me five Otwiski roubles for one of his own town. I thought a bit about that, and when I got back to Otwiski I tried the same thing, and found I could get three Triadropoldir roubles there for one Otwiski."
"I see," I remarked, as the beauty of this arrangement dawned upon me.
"All I had to do therefore was to change my money in Otwiski for three times as much Triadropoldir currency, and then go up the line to the other place and change it back again, making fifteen hundred per cent, on the round trip. Of course you couldn't always change the full amount, but in a couple of months I had sixty thousand roubles—my valise was crammed with them—and I was only waiting to get down to the Field Cashier to change out and make my fortune."
"And did you?" I asked.
"No, I didn't. One morning the Reds arrived in Triadropoldir, and my servant and I only just got away with the valise on one of those inspection cars which you propel by pulling a handle backwards and forwards. A section of Red Cavalry came after us, and we took it in turns to work the handle."
"Your servant won't ever be short of a job," I commented. "He ought to take to film-acting after that like a duck to water."
"We soon finished my servant's ammunition and they were closing in on us fast. My hair had appreciably lifted my tin hat when I had a brain-wave and threw out a double handful of rouble notes. It worked like a charm; they all stopped to collect the money, and we had gone quite a distance before they caught us up again, I threw out more notes at intervals, and the last thousand roubles went just as we came in sight of Denikin's outposts fifteen miles down the line. We were saved, but I had lost my fortune, for there was no chance of repeating the operation."
I sighed. Then, without any regard for the conclusions of my fellow-passengers, I silently raised both my hands above my head.
Ordinary Man (to well-fed friend). "Hullo! How are things with you? Making lots of money, I suppose?"
Yorkshireman. "No. We don't make money at Bradford—we just pick it oop."
"She had her hair cut short, and claimed to be a member of a tilted family."—Provincial Paper.
One with a bend sinister, we presume.
A leader of fashion at Ely
Whose clothes were a bit down-at-heely
Was quite overcome
When he found he'd the sum
That would buy him a Mallaby-Deeley.
"BLACK CATS' STRIKE THREAT."
Heading in a Sunday Paper of a report of a demand made by Viennese clerks for doubled salaries.
For "Cats'," read "Coats'." O the diff! as Wordsworth said.
"Retriever Wanted; steady good worker: retrieve feather or fur, land or water."—Provincial Paper.
The exile of Amerongen could do with one of this breed.
"The act of the donor suggests the lines:
"'How far doth that little candle throw its beams
On like a good deed in a naughty world.'"
Daily Graphic.
The author's name is not given, but we do not think he has improved much on Shakspeare.