“But it will cost both of your lives!” exclaimed Shacabac.
“It will cost me my Pachalik,” cried Muley Mustapha, dismally.
“It will cost fifty thousand gold sequins, to begin with,” replied the noble matron. “As a preliminary step, you will order the First Lord of the Treasury to go into the Street of the Moneychangers, taking the Court Torturer along with him, and solicit a loan of that sum, at par, within half an hour. I shall prepare for our departure on the day after to-morrow, at sunrise. You, Shacabac, will come with us. See that the caravan and guards be ready ere the break of day.”
CHAPTER VI.
The man who can invent a good working substitute for honesty has yet to be invented himself.—Eastern Proverb.
Great were the rejoicings in Ubikwi when the news was announced that the young Prince Muley was about to wed the daughter of the mighty King of Nhulpar, becoming thereby prospective heir not only to the Pachalik of Ubikwi, but also to a great Sultanship and a vastly greater Kingdom. The people rejoiced with great joy, not reflecting that, perchance, the cost of sustaining the triple dignities might fall heavy on their own shoulders. But it hath ever been the way of the populace to take delight in increased burdens, provided the packages only be gaudily decorated; wherein they differ from the camel and the ass and other brute beasts, which have no appreciation of æsthetics.
The merchants, especially, who everywhere boast of being a conservative class, that would rather pay ten piastres of tribute than one for the suppression of brigandage, hastened to lay their loyal congratulations before the Pasha. Shacabac received them affably, and in reply to their address delivered a discourse fraught with practical wisdom, of which unhappily only a few fragments have been preserved to this day; but these are not without their value to traders of another and a foreign generation. He said:—
“We have all more or less to do with Commerce. We buy goods, and sometimes pay for them. We sell the precious products of our hands or brains at the best price we can get. If the buyer pays up, we are sorry that we did not charge him more. If he fails, we are glad that he did not decide to pay less on the piastre. When we have grown very rich, we speculate; and that keeps us from being purse-proud and haughty.
“Be diligent in keeping your accounts. It is better to charge an item twice than to forget to charge it once. That is the true principle of Double Entry.
“Pay as you go, but not if you intend going for good.