"What else have I to offer? You are new to the country—you don't know the roads—you haven't got any money."
"Pardon me! I have a thaler left."
"No, you haven't—you pay that to me for the partnership."
The metaphysical Maimon was tickled. "But what do I gain for my thaler?"
"My experience."
"But if so, you gain nothing from my partnership."
"A thaler to begin with. Then, you see, your learning and morality will draw when I am at a loss for quotations. In small villages we go together and produce an impression of widespread misery: we speak of the destruction of our town by fire, of persecution, what you will. One beggar might be a liar: two together are martyrs."
"Then you beg only in villages?"
"Oh no. But in towns we divide. You do one half, I do another. Then we exchange halves, armed with the knowledge of who are the beneficent in either half. It is less fatiguing."
"Then the beneficent have to give twice over."