“The king angrily bit his mustache and, unable to count out to him his grains of wheat, named the inventor of chess prime vizier. That is what the wily dervish wanted.”
“Like the king, I should have fallen into the dervish’s snare,” said Jules. “I should have thought that doubling a grain sixty-four times would only give a few handfuls of wheat.”
“Henceforth,” returned Uncle Paul, “you will know that a number, even very small, when multiplied a number of times by the same figure, is like a snow-ball which grows in rolling, and soon becomes an enormous ball which all our efforts cannot move.”
“Your dervish was very crafty,” remarked Emile. “He modestly contented himself with one grain of wheat for his blue pigeons, on condition that they doubled the number on each square. Apparently, he asked next to nothing; in reality, he asked more than the king possessed. What is a dervish, Uncle?”
“In the religions of the East they call by that name those who renounce the world to give themselves up to prayer and contemplation.”
“You say the king made him prime vizier. Is that a high office?”
“Prime vizier means prime minister. The dervish then became the greatest dignitary of the State, after the king.”
“I am no longer surprised that he refused the ten purses of a thousand sequins. He was waiting for something better. The ten purses, however, would make a good sum?”
“A sequin is a gold piece worth about twelve francs. At that rate, the king offered the dervish a sum of one hundred and twenty thousand francs, besides the sacks of wheat.”
“And the dervish preferred the grain sixty-four times doubled.”