“So much the better for one who wishes to deal with you in that way,” observed Hester. “If gold is scarce, you will give a good price for a batch of guineas.”
“That depends upon what commodity I pay in,” replied Philip. “If in goods, all very well,[well,] if in bank paper, you will remember that that is scarce too. Guineas are now worth only a trifle more than bank-notes; and since it is so, I cannot but wonder that anybody has them to sell. Anybody that thought of doing so should have done it many months,—aye, full three years ago, to have made the best bargain.”
“My mother knows that now. It is she that sends you this bag of coin,” said Hester, producing the treasure. “She must have notes for it, of course, and not goods; and I am sure, Philip, you will give her as much as you can afford, in consideration of her disappointment from having kept them too long.”
“That I will,” said Philip, “and more than I would give anybody else. It will be a good opportunity of giving her a present, which I was thinking of doing about this time. Which do you think she will like best,—to have as much as I suppose she expects for her guineas, or to have little above the same number of one pound notes, and a present of some pretty thing out of my stock?”
Hester rather thought her mother would prefer an exemption from disappointment to a testimony of remembrance from her son. All mothers would not have given cause to be thus judged; nor would all sons have received so mortifying an opinion with the indifference which Philip exhibited. The whole affair was to him a matter of business; the devising the present, the manner in which it should be bestowed, and finally, the way in which it would be accepted.
“Let me see,” said he, pondering his bargain. “What should I give to anybody else? Here is paper money now within 2-1/2 per cent of gold: but likely to fall a bit, I fancy, before the Bank begins its cash payments, if it ever does such a thing.”
“And how low had paper fallen when guineas sold best?” enquired Hester.
“Why, paper money is worth nearly 23 per cent more now than it was in 1814. That was the year when my mother should have disposed of her hoard. Paper has risen so high, you see, that government thinks it a good time to fix its value by making Bank of England notes payable in cash. As far as the present value of paper is concerned, it may be a good time; but it is a bad time on other accounts.”
“Why? I should have thought it one of the best that could be chosen. There are no armies to be paid abroad. Think what a quantity of coin it must have taken to pay our soldiers on the continent during the war! Then there is, in the midst of all the distress that is complained of some degree of that security and steadiness which follow upon a peace; and the gold that was hoarded is now brought out for use. All these circumstances seem likely to help the Bank to pay in specie. I should have thought this a particularly good time to begin again.”
“Aye; that is because you do not know. There has been a falling off from the mines lately; and this is just the time that several foreign states have chosen for calling in some of their paper currency. Gold would be getting dearer from these causes, even if we did not want to buy more than usual of it. But wanting, as we do, thirty millions in gold, what can we expect but that it should be very dear!”