“I was just coming to that,” said he. “Yes they made lots of money if they could only have got it, but that was the rub. For a few years while the amount of the acreage of the canals was small, it was comparatively easy to raise and pay over the five per cent due the Lunarians, but by the time the first great canal was completed through at a width of 200 feet, their interest amounted to 375,000 kiks per annum. By this time the king had discovered a good many new uses for money, and it went very much against the grain to pay over this interest. He began to think the Lunarians were going to be rather too well paid for the services and “investment,” they had talked about; and he congratulated himself that they had not availed themselves of his effusive offer, of ten per cent instead of five. However while he grumbled, he paid; and continued to do so as long as he lived, although towards the last the interest amounted to the very handsome sum of 1,000,000 kiks per annum. But that is all, after the death of that king who is yet affectionately referred to by the Martians as the “father of the canals,” the Lunarians for 7,000 years never got a kik. However, what they had already received was enough to make every member of the colony many times a millionaire if they had divided it amongst them. But this they did not do. The Lunarians are socialists and they regarded this money as belonging to the whole Lunarian race, to those at home on the moon as much as to themselves. They invested it to the best advantage in various enterprises, consuming on themselves only what their simple and modest personal wants required. The bonus or subsidy of 100 kiks per acre generally paid the entire cost of construction and the Lunarians had their interest money. At the death of the king there was one year’s interest due amounting to 1,000,000 kiks. The successor to the throne was not satisfied with the contract to pay a dividend on the stock the Lunarians held in the canals, and in fact repudiated it all except the 1,000,000 kiks then due which he said he would pay when he got around to it. But he never did, and the claim continued to draw interest which was computed and audited at the beginning of each subsequent reign, but always put off for some reason or other and not paid.”
“Why didn’t they foreclose their mortgage?” I asked.
“Well they did not want to do that until they were ready to improve the property so as to make it earn something. They reasoned that the canal claim, as it was called, was making money at a tremendous rate. The interest on it 2,000 years ago or, over 6,000 years after the work on the canals was commenced, amounted to thousands of millions of kiks every minute, and they had not been able to devise any plan by which they could make any satisfactory use of the mortgaged property; and so they let the money remain in the canal fund.”
“But,” said I, “suppose it was earning so many millions of kiks, I don’t see what good it did them if they never got it.”
“Why you see,” he replied, “they got out of it in that shape, all they could have got if the money had been in their hands. And it was safe. It could not be stolen and nobody would be tempted to assassinate the owners in order to get it. When people have such enormous fortunes they can come into personal contact with only a small portion of them. An individual owning many millions can only use on himself a few hundreds or thousands, and the rest of it buys him nothing but the respect homage, consideration, obsequiousness and sycophancy of the crowd. For all this he does not have to pay a cent, but must own or be supposed to own millions. The funds which our Lunarians owned in canal stock made them the lions of Mars. Their personal abilities, accomplishments and graces would have done that anyway, with a certain class, but the addition of all that wealth gave them an influence and consideration amongst the mass of people who had no great appreciation of any other sort of merit.
“All sorts of odd stories concerning the wealthy foreigners found circulation amongst the masses. Once it was reported that if the canal funds were not paid before the next Christmas, the Lunarians intended to fill up all the canals again. It was well known for ages that there was not enough money on Mars to pay the canal debt, or even its accumulation for one year. Not very long ago it became reported that the Lunarians had sold their claims to capitalists on the earth, and that the latter were going to get out an attachment for Mars, bid it off at sheriff’s sale and take it for another moon to the earth. The story even settled the route it was to run on—half way between the earth and the moon.”
“That was a likely tale indeed!” said I. “They didn’t know our capitalists very well or they wouldn’t have imagined them going into a scheme that did not promise to pay pretty big.”
“O, but it was to pay well as they had it planned. First the speculators were to sell short for future delivery all the gas and standard oil stocks in the world: then they were to bargain with the various great cities to furnish additional moonlight at so much for each added moon power, measured by our moon. They calculated that Mars placed 120,000 miles from the earth would reflect upon the earth 16 times as much light as the moon does. This would make the night about as bright as day. This would reduce the value of oil and gas stocks almost to nothing and the speculators would then buy them up for delivery on their sale contracts and make an enormous sum. The most of the Martians were keen for the enterprise to be consummated. They said that they would gain more than the earth by the change, for both the earth and moon would act as moons for Mars, and he would get four times as much light from the earth as he would give it. He would also get far more light and heat from the sun than he did where he was. When it was announced that the story was a hoax many people were actually disappointed. Others said they were glad to have escaped the disgrace of being sold out at a bankrupt sale and degraded from a full fledged planet to a mere satellite to be towed off to play second fiddle to another world.”
“But how did they think Mars was to moved over to the earth?”