“Why, whenever the owner of the money comes to call for it, instead of giving back the money, which was deposited, he just gives him the same amount of his own money, and that is just as good. One dollar is as good as another dollar.”
“O father!” said Lucy.
“Why, isn’t it?” said her father.
“O no, sir; some are a great deal prettier.”
Here Lucy’s father laughed again very heartily, and concluded that Lucy was rather too young to understand much about banking and finance. However, he thought that he would not despair too soon. So he proceeded thus:—
“Yes, Lucy, you are right; one dollar may be brighter and prettier than another as a coin, to be used for a plaything; but when I agreed to give you so much money each month, I did not mean so many coins for playthings, but a certain amount of value for purchases. Now, in value, and for use in making purchases, one dollar is as good as another; and so, in almost all cases in reckoning accounts among men, they never think at all of the particular money that they receive and pay, but only of the value. When one man borrows ten dollars of another man, he does not keep those same dollars to pay back to him again, but only pays him other dollars as good. And when money is deposited with a banker, he does not keep the same money, but puts it with his own, and spends from it just as if it were his own; and then, when the man who deposited the money with him, calls for it, he only gives him an equal amount of his own.”
“Yes, father, I understand it now,” said Lucy.
“Just so with the money of your allowance. I don’t keep it separately from my other money; I am only bound to let you have the amount in value;—so that you see I can never give you your money to play with, but only when you want to expend any of it, then I must supply you with some of my own.”
Lucy seemed to be pretty well satisfied with this account; but still she wished there was some way by which she could have some of her money for a plaything.
“Well,” said her father, “we can manage it in this way. I will give you a piece of money, and I will set it down in the account, just as if it had been a plaything bought.”