"Why!" I cried, "you told me at three o'clock that you had only
ninepence left!"
He smiled enigmatically.
"Aw've been speculatin'," he said proudly. "Have ye seen the mannie
that's sellin' watches and things at the Cross? Aw was standin' there
wi' Geordie Steel this mornin', and the mannie speered if onybody wud
gie him a penny for a shillin', and naebody wud dae it at first. Syne a
ploughman gae him a penny and he got the shillin'. Syne the mannie
speers again, and Geordie got a shillin' for a ha'penny. Syne he began
to sell watches, and the first man that bocht a watch got his money
back. Syne he held up a gold chain, and the man that bocht that he got
his money back. Syne he held up anither gold chain and said he wud sell
it for half-a-crown. So Geordie ups and hauds oot his half-croon, and it
was a' the money he had. Weel, he gets the chain, but no his money back.
'Don't go away,' says the mannie; 'each and every man as buys an article
of jewellery will have his reward.'
"Weel, Aw waited for half-an-hoor, but Geordie hadna got onything by
that time, so Aw goes and sees the boxin' show. After that Aw had a
shot o' the shoagin' boats, and syne Aw went back to the Cross. Geordie
was ay waitin' for his reward. So Aw says to him: 'He's likely forgot a'
aboot it, Geordie; tell him!' So Geordie hauds up his gold chain and
says: 'Hi, mannie, ye said Aw was to get a reward!' 'O, yes,' says the
mannie, 'and so you shall! I want you to keep these eighteen carat gold
sleeve-links as a memento of this occasion,' and he shoved a pair o'
links into Geordie's hands. After that he shut his box and said he wud
hae anither sale at four punctual.
"Weel, Aw began to think aboot the thing, and when he began again he did
the same thing. 'Will anyone oblige me by giving me a penny for
half-a-crown?' he says, and Aw was just puttin' up my hand when a man
held up his penny. 'Hi!' I cried, 'Aw'll gie ye tuppence if ye like!'
and the mannie that was selling the things he lauched and handed me the
half-croon. 'You're the kind of lad I'm looking for for an apprentice,'
he says, but whenever Aw got the money Aw turned and ran awa, and he
cries after me: 'Yes, you are the lad I want, but I see you are too
clever for me.'"
I asked Jim to show me the half-crown, and I examined it. It was quite
genuine, but I said to Jim: "Men like that usually give away bad money."
He was off like a flash, and when he came back he carried twenty-five
pennies and ten hapennies.
"If he starts to sell again," he announced, "Aw'll get Geordie to hand
up the penny, but Aw'll no stand aside him."
The girls each brought my "market" to me to-night ... a packet of rock.
I asked about their spendings. Janet had bought three lucky-bags and
nine lucky eggs. She had had no luck, and was somewhat grieved at the
fact that Jean had bought only one lucky-egg and had got a new hapenny
in it. Janet would have bought another egg with the hapenny, but I was
not surprised to hear that Jean had bought sugarelly. Ellen had bought a
tupenny note-book and a copying-ink pencil, a rubber and a card of
assorted pen-nibs. Gladys had spent her all on lemon-kailie, the
heavenly powder you get in oval boxes, with two wee tin spoons to sup it
with.
Jim came up later. His pockets contained three trumps, or Jewish harps
as they are called in catalogues, three copying-ink pencils, a pencil
that wrote red at one end and blue at the other, two mouth-organs, a
wire puzzle, and ... Geordie's gold chain. The latter he had bought for
tuppence and a double-stringed trump.
"Aw spent three and fowerpence," he said, "but dinna tell the Mester!"
"Why not, Jim?"
"Cos he'll be angry. He told us yesterday no to spend oor money at the
market, but to bring it and put it in the Savin's Bank."
I wonder what becomes of the money that children put into the Savings
Bank. I think that their parents usually collar it at some time or
another. I half suspect that quite a number of cottage pianos owe their
appearance to the children's bank-books. I stopped the saving business
when I was down in the school. Bairns seldom get money, and sugarelly is
like Robinson Crusoe: you must tackle it when you are young, or you
never enjoy it thoroughly. I think it cruel to make a bairn bank the
penny it gets for running a message. Spending is always a pleasant
thing, but a bairn gets more delirious joy out of buying a hapenny
lucky-bag than an adult gets out of buying a thousand guinea Rolls Royce
motor.
Some parents are foolish enough to give their bairns too much to spend.
Little Mary Wallace has a penny every day of the year. I think that
foolish of her mother. Spending must be a very rare thing if it is to
yield the highest pleasure.
I would advise bairns to save when they have a definite object in view.
To lay up treasure in the Post Office Savings Bank is, for a bairn,
about as tempting as laying up treasure in heaven. Bairns can't
entertain remote possibilities. You can tell a boy that a sum in the
bank will help him to buy clothes or a bicycle when he is a man, and the
prospect does not thrill him. You can't persuade a boy to cast his eyes
on the years to come when his eyes are rivetted on a cake of chewing-gum
in the village shop window. If he saves it should be for a direct
tangible object. He takes up a Gamage catalogue (the most delightful of
books to a boy), and he sees an illustration of a water-pistol costing a
shilling. If he is a boy of spirit he will deny himself sweeties for a
month in order to get that pistol. The self-discipline necessary to
enable a village boy to buy a water-pistol will do him infinitely more
good than all the discipline of all the Macdonalds in Scotland. I would
have all children poor in money, but I would give them the opportunity
of earning enough money to buy their toys. A little poverty is good for
anybody; I would recommend a young man to live on twelve shillings a
week for a year or two; he would begin to see things in proportion.
A friend of mine bases his antipathy to Socialism on this view of
poverty. He argues that poverty brings out self-reliance, pluck, grit.
When I ask him why he doesn't support Socialism as a means of bringing
all these advantages to the poor wealthy folk, he is at a loss. In a
manner I agree with him; poverty will often give a race splendid
characteristics. But Socialism recognises that the wealth of the world
is divided most unequally. At one end you have luxury that makes men
degenerate; at the other end you have poverty that makes men swine. If
Shaw's idea of equal incomes could be carried out each person would be
in the position of a member of the present lower middle class; he would
be rich enough to be well-fed and happy, and he would be poor enough to
discipline himself to make sacrifices to attain an object. I don't think
that any man should satisfy more than one desire at a time. If Andrew
Carnegie wants a motor-car and a four manual organ he has simply to tell
his secretary to write out two cheques. But if I want a motor-cycle and
an Angelus player-piano I've got to give up one desire. I know that I'll
tire of either, and all I have to do is to sit down and wonder which
novelty will last the longer. I want both very much. A 2¾-h.p. Douglas
would be delightful, and an Angelus with lots of rolls would charm the
long nights away. But ... there is Margaret. I begin to think of
blankets and sheets and pots and pans. I don't want any of these
plebeian articles, but I want Margaret very much, and I know that along
with her I must take the whole bunch of kitchen utensils.
I begin to feel sorry for millionaires. One of the finer pleasures of
life is the desiring of a thing you can't buy. The sorriest man in story
is the millionaire who arrived at a big hotel very late, so late that he
couldn't be served with supper. He straightway sent for the proprietor
and asked the price of the hotel. He wrote out a cheque on the spot ...
and called for his sausage and mashed--or whatever the dish was. No
wonder that millionaires complain of indigestion.
That story contains a fine moral. I don't exactly know what the moral
is, but I hazard the opinion that the moral is this:--Never buy a hotel
in order to get a plate of sausage and mashed. Millionaires might be
defined as men who buy hotels in order to get sausage and mashed ... and
they can't digest the sausage when they have got it. When a Carnegie
builds a great organ in a great hall he is really buying the whole
hotel. He is taking an unfair advantage of his fellow music-lovers. A
plate of sausage and mashed would be of far greater moment to G. K.
Chesterton than to the millionaire, but G. K. couldn't buy the whole
hotel; he would merely swear volubly and tighten the belt of his
waistcoat ... if that were possible. The millionaire should not have
this advantage over Chesterton. So a millionaire should not have any
advantage over a music-lover. Collinson, the Edinburgh University
organist, has no doubt a greater appreciation of organ music than a
Carnegie, but he has to go down to his church organ on a winter night if
he wants to play a Bach fugue. Money is power, they say, but money is
worse than power; it is tyranny. A successful pork-merchant whose one
talent is his ability to tell at a glance how much pig it takes to fill
a thousand tins of lamb cutlet, may buy up half the treasures of the
world if he likes. Priceless pictures and violins lie in millionaires'
halls, while students of genius study prints and practise on two guinea
fiddles. At first sight this seems a problem that Horatio Bottomley
would handle eagerly and popularly, but the problem is really a deep
one. When humanity abolishes the power to amass millions who is to have
the priceless treasures? In the case of art the community of course. (I
see in to-day's paper that Rodin has bequeathed all his works to
France.) But what of the Stradivarius violins? I would have them lent to
the geniuses. Who is to decide who the geniuses are? That is a question
of fundamentals, and if I had left the question to Mr. Bottomley I think
he would have recommended his readers to "write to John Bull about it."
I begin to feel that I am talking through my hat as the vulgar phrase
has it. My baccy's finished, and I can't concentrate my attention on any
subject. What I meant to do was to show that a millionaire is a man to
be pitied. To buy a Titian painting when your tastes lie in the
direction of Heath Robinson's _Frightful War Pictures_ is as pathetic a
thing to do as to sit out a classical concert when your tastes lead you
to a passionate love for ragtime. And buying a Titian is a simple case
of buying the hotel in order to get the sausage and mashed that you
can't eat.
Millionaires ... no, it's no good; I'll have to fold up my typewriter
till I get some more baccy.