“Say, old man,” I put in, “that was only a sov. I gave you, you know.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” panted the native, dumping another handful that rattled down the sides of the heap like a bucketful of stones on the pile under a stone crusher, “I know, and I am very sorry I have not enough to change him. But I give you this and he just make him up.”
He tossed towards me a gold piece of ten francs.
“What!” I cried, “You don’t mean that I get that heap and ten francs besides, for one quid?”
“Aywa, efendee, yes, that makes one pound,” he answered.
I pawed over the heap. Each rake brought to light pieces of new and unique pattern. “Fine collection,” I said, “but what’s the answer?”
The clerk drew a long breath as if for an extended lecture, and picked up one of the tobacco tags; “This,” he said, “is a metleek. It is worth eleven-twelfths of a half-penny. Five of these coppers make a metleek—only not quite—that is—here in Beirut—in Damascus five of them make a metleek and a little more. Ten metleeks make a bishleek—” he picked up one of the coins the owner of which would be arrested, in a civilized country, for carrying concealed weapons, “one bishleek—that is—except one and a half of these copper coins—that is—here—in Damascus ten metleeks make a bishleek and four coppers—except not quite—and in Sidon they make the same as in Damascus—only a little less—and these coins are worth the same as a bishleek—except not quite—that is—here—if they have a hole in them they are worth a copper and three-fourths—more—that is, here—in Damascus they are worth a copper and one-fourth more, and this dish-shaped one is worth three bishleeks and three metleeks and two coppers and sometimes three-fourths of a copper more, except they with holes in them which are worth two metleeks and a copper and a half more, and this mejeedieh is worth in Damascus seven bishleeks and seven metleeks and two coppers and sometimes three and sometimes here not so much by two and a half coppers and in Jerusalem—”
“And suppose it is a rainy day?”
“Oh, that does not make any difference,” said the clerk, with owl-like solemnity, “but sometimes on busy days, as on feast days, the bishleek is worth three coppers and a half more—that is, here—in Damascus it is worth two more and sometimes not so much—as in Ramadan, and in Sidon it is worth three-fourths of a copper less and in—here in Beirut—”
“Hold on, efendee,” I cried. “If you have a pencil and a ream of paper at hand—”