It would appear that the Leaphighers, while they obey only the king’s eldest first cousin of the masculine gender, perform all their official acts in the name of the sovereign himself, for whose person and character they pretty uniformly express the profoundest veneration; just as we men express admiration for a virtue that we never practise. My declaration, therefore, produced a strong sensation, and I was soon required to explain myself. This I did, by simply stating the truth.
“Oh, gold, yclept sovereigns!” exclaimed three or four, laughing heartily. “Why then, your famous Great Breeches people, after all, Chatterino, are so little advanced in civilization as to use gold! Harkee, Signior—a—a—Boldercraft, have you no currency in ‘promises’?”
“I do not know, sir, that I rightly comprehend the question.”
“Why, we poor barbarians, sir, who live as you see us, only in a state of simplicity and nature,”—there was irony in every syllable the impudent scoundrel uttered—“we poor wretches, or rather our ancestors, made the discovery, that for the purposes of convenience, having, as you perceive, no pockets, it might be well to convert all our currency into ‘promises.’ Now, I would ask if you have any of that coin?”
“Not as coin, sir, but as collateral to coin, we have plenty.”
“He speaks of collaterals in currency, as if he were discussing a pedigree! Are you really, Mynherr Shouldercalf, so little advanced in your country, as not to know the immense advantages of a currency of ‘promises’?”
“As I do not understand exactly what the nature of this currency is, sir, I cannot answer as readily as I could wish.”
“Let us explain it to him; for, I vow, I am really curious to hear his answer. Chatterino, do you, who have some knowledge of the thing’s habits, be our interpreter.”
“The matter is thus, Sir John. About five hundred years ago, our ancestors, having reached that pass in civilization when they came to dispense with the use of pockets, began to find it necessary to substitute a new currency for that of the metals, which it was inconvenient to carry, of which they might be robbed, and which also was liable to be counterfeited. The first expedient was to try a lighter substitute. Laws were passed giving value to linen and cotton, in the raw material; then compounded and manufactured; next, written on, and reduced in bulk, until, having passed through the several gradations of wrapping-paper, brown-paper, foolscap and blotting-paper, and having set the plan fairly at work, and got confidence thoroughly established, the system was perfected by a coup de main,—‘promises’ in words were substituted for all other coin. You see the advantage at a glance. A monikin can travel without pockets or baggage, and still carry a million; the money cannot be counterfeited, nor can it be stolen or burned.”
“But, my lord, does it not depreciate the value of property?”