“He left everything.”
The ox-cart slowly mounted a snow-covered hill, and I kept quiet. Presently my host said:
“There are no pockets to our shrouds; neither are there money drawers in our burial vaults; and that man’s coffin could not hold a tithe of what he amassed.”
“Why, how much was he worth?”
“Ninety billion buttons!” exclaimed the Excelsior, his eyes bulging in spite of himself.
“Buttons? Are buttons the coin of your realm?” I asked, smiling.
“You need not be so supercilious, my small guest,” snapped the Excelsior, “for I adopted our currency system from your own people.”
“How is that?”
“I sent my agents to the warm ocean lands to search out what gave the majority of your people the greatest satisfaction. They made an exhaustive inquiry, and reported that most of you derived satisfaction from saying and having it said: He or she is worth so many million dollars, francs, pounds, rubles; and that the larger the number they could say the more glee they derived. Very well, if it be simply that the larger the sum the more the satisfaction, why not have a coin which can be multiplied indefinitely? Hence I decided upon buttons. Moreover, there is a moral attaching to our form of currency, for as buttons are used upon our clothes, and we can not use more than ten or a dozen upon one suit, and can only wear one suit at a time, a rich man is constantly reminded how superfluous are his other billions of buttons. Now, let us ride along for a while in peace.”
The snow fell so fast that it balled upon the feet of our oxen, but as we ourselves were protected by a massive parasol, our view was unobstructed. Shortly we entered a thickly settled portion of the city where high structures towered toward the clouds. They resembled in architecture our great office buildings. I could not maintain my silence any longer.