“We had arrived,” said the excellent old merchant to his nephews when they were once more seated round him for the last of these entertaining relations. “We had arrived, my dear boys, in the story of my life, at my considerable increase of fortune through the financial aid I had given to two States, one of which after a long and exhaustive war had conquered and annexed the other.
“My position (if you recollect) at the close of this adventure was that without having spent any money of my own I was now receiving permanently and for ever a very large yearly revenue set aside from the taxes of both States.
“Not a man reaped or dug or carried heavy water jars under the hot sun, not a man groomed a horse or bent under the weight of a pack, not a man added brick to brick or mixed mortar, not a man did any useful act from one end of the State to the other, but some part of his toil was done for me, and this state of affairs was, as I have said, as fixed and permanent as human things can be.
“I was therefore what even financiers call well-to-do; one way with another I was now worth perhaps twenty million pieces of gold: but that is but guess work, it may have been twenty-five.
“You might imagine that I would have been content from that day onwards to repose in my opulence.
“I might well have been tempted to do so, for to that opulence was added a singular and fervid popularity. I was alluded to in public and private as the man who had saved the State by his financial genius during the Great War. Even the conquered remembered me gratefully for the aid I had extended to them in their need; while since I could not satisfy my personal desires without at least feeding a great host of dancers, bearers, artists, my kindness in affording employment was universally recognized; moreover (since among these people wealth is a test of greatness) I was admitted to their Senate without the usual formality of a cash payment.
“The world was now indeed at my feet. But you must know,” continued Mahmoud with something of sadness in his voice, “you must know, my dear, innocent lads, that wealth will not stop still. The mere administration of a great fortune tends to increase it, and when one has for years found one’s occupation in the accumulation of money, it is difficult in middle age to abandon the rooted habit. Therefore, though I now had all that life could give me, I proceeded henceforward for many years to increase that substance with which the Mercy of Allah had provided me; and I discovered at the outset of this new career that to be the financier I had become, and to have behind me the resources which I now possessed, made my further successes a matter not of hazard but of certitude. Shall I briefly tell you the various ways in which my efforts proceeded?”
“Pray, pray do so,” said his little nephews with sparkling eyes, each imagining himself in the dazzling position of his wealthy relative.
“Very well,” sighed Mahmond. “It will be of little use to any of you; but if it does no more than confirm you in your religion what I have to tell you will not have been told in vain.”