ENTITLED _AL-TAWAJIN_, OR THE PIPKINS
On the appointed day of the next week, when, with the hour of public
executions, the noon-day amusements of the city come to an end, and
the citizens betake themselves to the early afternoon’s repose, the
seven boys were once more seated in the presence of their uncle, whom
they discovered in a radiant humour.
He welcomed them so warmly that they imagined for a moment he
might be upon the point of offering them sherbet, sweetmeats, or
even money; they were undeceived, however, when the excellent but
extremely wealthy old man, drawing his purse lovingly through his
fingers, ordered to have poured out for each of them by a slave a
further draught of delicious cold water, put himself at his ease for
a long story, and resumed his tale:
“You will remember, my delightful nephews,” he said, “how I found
myself in the hermit’s hut without a friend in the world, and with a
capital of no more than twelve thousand dinars which I had carried
thither in a sack upon donkey-back. Indeed, it was entirely due to
the Mercy of Allah that my small capital was even as large as it was:
for had the merchant in the bazaar discovered the pearls to be false
he would not only have offered me far less but might possibly, after
having disposed of the pearls, have given me over to the police. As
it was, Heaven had been kind to me, though not bountiful, and I still
had to bethink me what to do next if I desired to increase my little
treasure.
“Taking leave, therefore, of the good hermit, I pressed into his hand
a small brass coin the superscription of which was unknown to me and
which I therefore feared I might have some difficulty in passing. I
assured my kind host that it was a coin of the second Caliph Omar
and of value very far superior to any modern gold piece of a similar
size. As the hermit, like many other saintly men, was ignorant
of letters, his gratitude knew no bounds. He dismissed me with a
blessing so long and complicated that I cannot but ascribe to it some
part of the good fortune which next befell me.
“For you must know that when, after laying in stores at a
neighbouring village, I had driven my donkey forward for nearly a
week over barren and uninhabited mountains, and when I had nearly
exhausted my provision of dried cakes and wine (a beverage which our
religion allows us to consume when no one is by), I was delighted to
come upon a fertile valley entirely closed in by high, precipitous
cliffs save at one issue, where a rough track led from this enchanted
region to the outer world. In this valley I discovered, to my
astonishment, manners to be so primitive or intelligence so low that
the whole art of money-dealing was ignored by the inhabitants and by
the very Governors themselves.
“The King (who, I am glad to say, was of the Faithful) had, indeed,
promulgated laws against certain forms of fraud which he imagined
to be denounced in the Koran; but these were of so infantile a
character that a man of judgment could very easily avoid them in any
plans he might frame for the people’s betterment and his own. The
population consisted entirely of soldiers and rustics, among all of
whom not one could be discovered capable of calculating with justice
a compound interest for ten years.
“Under these circumstances my only difficulty lay in choosing what
form my first enterprise should take. After a little thought I
decided that what we call in Bagdad an Amalgamation of Competing
Interests would be no bad beginning.
“I began with due caution by investing a couple of thousand dinars
in the merchandise of a potter who had recently died and whose
widow needed ready cash to satisfy the sacred demands of the dead.
She spent the money in the ornamentation of his tomb, with which
unproductive expenditure the foolish woman was in no small degree
concerned.”
Here the eldest of the nephews interrupted Mahmoud to ask, most
respectfully, why with a capital of twelve thousand dinars he had
used but two, and why he had begun his experiment upon the petty
business of a poor widow.
“My son,” said his uncle affectionately, “you do well to ask these
questions. They show a reasoned interest in the great art of Getting.
Well then, as to the smallness of my beginning, it was, I hope, due
to humility. For ostentation is hateful. But a good deed is never
thrown away--and how useful I found this reserve of ten thousand
dinars (which I had in my meekness kept aside) you shall soon learn.
“As to why I began operations in the kiln of this poor widow, it was
because I have ever loved the little ones of this world and aided
them to my best endeavour. This charitable action also turned out
to be wise, as such actions often do; for I could thus proceed at
first unnoticed and begin my new adventures without exciting any
embarrassing attention.
“I continued to live in the same small hut I had hired on my arrival,
under the floor of which I kept my modest capital; and I put it
about, as modesty demanded, that I was almost destitute.
“As it was indifferent to me for the moment whether I obtained
a return upon this paltry investment or no, I was able to sell
my wares at very much the same sum as they had cost me, and as I
had bought the whole stock cheap, that sum was less than the cost
of manufacture. There was a considerable store of pipkins in the
old sheds, and while I sold them off at charitable rates (very
disconcerting to other merchants), I had time to consider my next
step.
“Upon this next step I soon determined. When, with due delay,
my original stock of pipkins had been sold, I purchased a small
consignment of clay, I relit the fires in the kiln, I hired a couple
of starving potters, and I began to manufacture.
“The fame of my very cheap pipkins had spread, as was but natural,
and secured me an increasing number of customers for my newly made
wares. But I thought it wrong to debauch the peasants by selling
them their pots under cost price any longer. I was constrained
by the plainest rule of duty to raise my prices to the cost of
manufacture--though no more, keeping Justice as my guiding star. For,
depend upon it, my dear nephews, in business as in every other walk
of life an exact rectitude alone can lead us to the most dazzling
rewards.
“This price of mine was still lower than that of all the other
pipkin-makers, who had been accustomed from immemorial time to the
base idea of profit, and were in a perpetual surmise what secret
powers I had to permit me such quotations. But I made no mystery
of the affair. I allowed all my friends to visit my simple factory
and I explained to their satisfaction how organization and a close
attention to costings were sufficient to account for my prosperity.
“Still, as my sales continued to grow, new doubts arose, and with
them, I am glad to say, new respect for my skill in affairs.
“The simple folk wondered by what art I had contrived so difficult a
financial operation, but as it was traditional among them that one
who sold goods cheap was a benefactor to the community, my action was
lauded, my fame spread, and the number of my customers continually
increased.
“You will not be slow to perceive, my dear boys, that my competitors
in the bazaar, being compelled, to compete with my ruinous prices,
were all embarrassed, and that the less attentive or privileged soon
began to fall into financial difficulties, the first of course being
those who were the most renowned among these simpletons for their
cunning, their silence, their lying, and their commercial skill in
general. These, as they were perpetually trying new combinations to
discover or to defeat my supposed schemes, were an easy prey. Even
the straightforward fellows who knew of no art more subtle than the
charging of ten per cent. above cost price, and who did not play into
my hands by any wearisome financial strategy, began to be roped into
my net as the area of my operations spread. For when I had acquired,
at a calculated loss, a good half of the pottery business in this
sequestered paradise, I could, by what is known as the Fluctuation of
the Market (but I will not confuse you with technical terms), put my
remaining competitors into alternate fevers of panic and expectation
very destructive to a Sound Business Judgment.
“Upon one day I would declare that a large consignment of pottery
being about to reach me, I could sell pipkins at half the usual
price. Pipkins fell heavily, and I bought through my agent every
pipkin I could lay hold of. The supposed consignment, I would then
put about, had been broken to atoms by an avalanche which had
overwhelmed the caravan at the very boundaries of the State. Price
leapt upward, and as I was the author of the rumour I was also the
first to take advantage of the rise in price. But the very moment,
my dear nephews, that my sluggish competitors attempted to follow
suit the market would, oddly enough, fluctuate again in a _downward_
direction.
“Upon a certain morning when one Abdullah (who was my boon companion
and the next merchant in importance to myself) decided to mark his
best pipkins at ten dinars the dozen I happened most prudently to
have offered my own at eight and a half dinars to my favourite
customers.
“And all this while I lived upon my hidden hoard.
“Poor Abdullah came to me in a sweat, very early the next morning,
and after some meaningless compliments and many pauses, asked me to
go into partnership. ‘For’ (said he) ‘though he admitted he had not
my capacities, yet he had a long experience in the trade, a large
connection and many influential friends in the allied lines of Pipkin
brokerage, Pipkin insurance, Pipkin discount, Pipkin remainders,
and--a most important branch--the buying and selling of Imaginary
Pipkins.’
“He could--he anxiously assured me--be of great service as an ally,
but he was free to confess that if he continued as he was he would be
ruined; for, to tell the truth, he had already come to the end of his
resources and had not a dinar in the house.
“I heard him out with a grave and sympathetic countenance, heaving
deep sighs when he touched upon his fears, nodding and smiling when
he spoke of his advantages, patting him affectionately when he
professed his devotion to myself, and assuming a look of anguish when
he spoke of his approaching ruin.
“But when he had concluded--almost in tears--I told him in tones
somewhat slower and graver than my ordinary, that I had one fixed
principle in life, bequeathed me by my dear father, now in Paradise,
_never to enter into partnership_; no, not with my nearest and
dearest, but ever to remain alone in my transactions. I frankly
admitted that this made me a poor man and would keep me poor. It
would be greatly to my advantage, in the despicable goods of this
world, to have at my disposal Abdullah’s marvellous experience, his
great array of family and business connections (to which my wretched
birth could make no claim), and above all his genius for following
the market. But the goods of this world were perishable--especially
earthenware--and the sacred pledge given to my sainted parent counted
more with me than all the baked mud in the world.
“As I thus spoke Abdullah’s breast heaved with tempestuous sobs,
provoked by the affecting example of my filial piety, but also, I
fear, by the black prospect of his own future.
“I could not bear to witness his distress. I hastened to relieve it.
Though my vow (I said) forbade me solemnly to enter into partnership,
yet I could be of service to him in another manner. I would lend him
money at a low rate of interest to the value of half his stock upon
the security of the whole. Times would change. The present ruinous
price of pipkins (by which I myself suffered severely) could not
long endure. He would lift his head again and could repay me at his
leisure.
“He thanked me profusely, kissed my hand again and again, and gave
me an appointment next day to view his merchandise and draw up the
contract.
“I visited him at the hour agreed. The public notaries drew up an
inventory of his whole stock, including his house and furniture, his
prayer beads (which I was interested in, for they were of a costly
Persian make), his dead wife’s jewels, all his clothes, his bed, and
his pet cat--an animal of no recorded pedigree but reputed to be of
the pure Kashmir breed. I carefully noted all flaws, however slight,
in each pipkin of his warehouse and set all such damaged goods aside
as a makeweight. The sound pipkins I made no bones of but accepted
frankly at their market value, and when the whole was added up the
valuation came to no less than 20,000 dinars. Yet so hide-bound in
routine were the inhabitants of the place that Abdullah--if you will
believe me!--had actually set his business stock down in his old
books at four-fold that amount!
“As I had had to carry on, I had not now left by me my full hoard of
10,000 dinars. I had but 8,000 left. Yet I was in no difficulty. Half
20,000 is 10,000--but there would be deductions!
“The costs of all this inventory and mortgage were, of course, set
down against my valued friend Abdullah, but since he had not the
ready cash wherewith to pay the notaries, their clerks, the demurrage
fees, the stamps, the royal licence, the enregistration, the
triplicates, the broker’s commission, the ...”
“Pray, uncle,” cried the youngest of the nephews, “what are all
these?”
“You must not interrupt me, my boy,” answered the great merchant,
a little testily, “they are the necessary accompaniments of such
transactions.... Well, as I was saying, the broker’s commission,
the porter’s wages, the gratuities to the notaries’ servants, the
cleaning up of the warehouse after all was over, and a hundred other
petty items, I generously allowed them to be deducted from the loan;
for our Prophet has said, ‘_Blessed is he that shall grant delay to
his debtor._’ That very evening, with every phrase of goodwill and
expressed hopes for his speedy recovery of fortune, I counted out
to my dear friend Abdullah the full balance of 16,325 dinars and
one half dinar, and left him overjoyed at the possession of so much
immediate wealth.
“But, alas! no man can forecast the morrow, and all things were
written at the beginning to be as they shall be. So far from pipkins
rising, the price fell slowly and regularly for three months, during
which time I was careful to restrict my own production somewhat,
though my poor dear friend, in his necessity, produced more
feverishly than ever, and thereby did but lower still further the now
really infamous price of pipkins.
“At last he came to a dead stop, and could produce no more. I gladly
allowed the first, the second and even the third arrears of interest
to be added to the principal at a most moderate compound rate, but
there was some fatality upon him, and I was inexpressibly shocked to
hear one morning that Abdullah had drowned himself over night in a
beautiful little lake which his long dead wife had designed for him
in his once charming pleasure grounds.”
“Oh! Poor man!” cried all the nephews in chorus.
“Poor man! Poor man indeed!” echoed their benevolent uncle, “I was a
stranger in that country. He was the closest tie I had to it, and,
indeed, in my loneliness, the nearest companion I had in the whole
world.” And here the good old man paused to breathe a prayer for the
departed companion of his long-past youth. He then sighed deeply and
continued:
“I used what had now become my considerable influence with the
government to provide him a costly funeral at the public expense--for
he had left no effects, nor even children to follow him. I walked
behind the coffin as chief mourner, and though I attempted to control
my grief, all the vast crowd assembled were moved by my manly sorrow,
and several spoke to me upon it at the conclusion of the sad rites.
“I allowed the decent interval of three days to elapse and then did
what I had no choice but to do. I took over Abdullah’s factory on
foreclosure and added it to my own.
“In this way the valuable kilns and stores of clay and wheels and
vehicles, etc., all became my property. I had them valued, and was
pleasurably surprised to discover that they were worth at least
25,000 dinars.
“A full two years had now passed since my first coming to this happy
and secluded valley where Allah had poured out upon me His blessings
in so marvellous a fashion. I was lonely, as you may imagine, but
I manfully faced my duty. I continued to supervise and extend my
manufactory of pipkins which now provided these articles for more
than half the households of the State. I therefore could and did put
the price of these useful articles upon a basis which, if it was
somewhat higher than that to which people had grown accustomed during
my earlier manipulations, had the priceless advantage of security,
so that the housewife could always know exactly what she had to
disburse--and I what I should receive. As I manufactured upon so
large a scale my overhead charges....”
“What are overhead ...” began the eldest nephew, when his uncle,
visibly perturbed, shouted “Silence!... You have made me forget what
I was going to say!”
There was an awkward pause, during which the old man restored his
ruffled temper and proceeded:
“I was able to buy clay more cheaply and better than the private
pipkin-makers (for so they were now called, with well merited
contempt) who still vainly attempted to compete with me, and my
business automatically grew as the poor remnant of theirs declined.
“Not only did I continually increase in wealth by these somewhat
obvious methods, but also in the power of controlling property; for
when some fresh fool among my fellow pipkin-makers found himself in
difficulties, it was my practice to seek him secretly, to condole
with him upon what I had heard was his approaching misfortune,
and to save him from ruin by taking over the whole of his stock.
Nay! I would do more. I would rescue him from the sad necessity
of attempting some new unknown trade by taking him into my own
employment at a generous salary (but upon a monthly agreement); with
a pretty concession to sentiment I would even leave him to manage
his own dear old booth in the bazaar to which so many years had now
accustomed him. I look back with pleasure upon the tears of gratitude
which stood in the eyes of those to whom I extended such favours.
“So things went on for one more year, and another, and another, till
the fifth year of my sojourn among these simple people was completed.
“I was in complete control of the pipkin trade, making all the
pipkins that the nation needed, and free from any rival. The house
which I had built for myself was the finest in the place, but
covered, I humbly add, with many a sacred text. Above its vast
horseshoe gate, ablaze with azure tiles, was inscribed in gold the
sentence, ‘Wealth is of God alone.’
“I was popularly known as ‘Melek-al-Tawajin,’ or the Pipkin King, but
officially decorated with the local title of ‘Warzan Dahur,’ which
was the highest they knew and signifies ‘Leader in battle.’ I was
entitled to wear a sword with a silver hilt in a jewelled scabbard,
an ornament of which I was justly proud, but the blade of which I
very sensibly kept blunt lest my servant should cut himself when he
polished it, or even I should inadvertently do myself a mischief
when I pulled it out with a flourish to display it to my guests, or
saluted with it on parade. I had become a most intimate companion of
the Court and was the most trusted counsellor of the King, to whose
wives also I often lent small sums of money; nor did I ask to be
repaid.
“In such a situation I mused upon my condition, and felt within me
strange promptings for a new and larger life. I was now well advanced
in manhood, I was filled with desires for action and device which the
narrow field of that happy but restricted place could not fulfil. I
longed for adventurous action in a larger world.
“The output and consumption of pipkins was at an exact unchangeable
level; the revenue a fixed amount. The profit of the trade I held
came to some 20,000 dinars in the year, the full purchase of which
should be, say, 200,000 dinars.
“I prayed earnestly for guidance, and one night as I so prayed an
idea was revealed to me by the Most High.
“I approached the King and told him how, all my life, I had nourished
the secret belief that a trade necessary to the whole community
should not, in justice, be controlled by a private individual, but
should rather be the full property of the State, of which His Majesty
was the sole guardian.
“The King listened to me with rapt attention as I unfolded with an
inspired eloquence my faith that no one man should intercept profits
which were due to the work of all. ‘It is your majesty,’ I cried,
‘who alone should have control over what concerns the body corporate
of your people.’ He and he alone should superintend the purchase of
pipkins, should regulate their sales, should receive all sums paid
for them, and should use that revenue as he might think best for
himself and the commonwealth. ‘While I was struggling in the dust
and confusion of commercial life,’ I concluded, ‘I had no leisure to
work out my scheme in its entirety, nor even to appreciate its serene
equity--but now ... now, I see, I understand, I know!’
“Carried away by the fire of my conviction, my Royal Master could no
longer brook delay. He bade me put the idea in its main lines before
him at once, and assured me it should at once be put into execution.
“I thereupon pulled out a paper showing that since I was fully
agreeable to take no more than the cash value of the trade _plus_
goodwill and _plus_ certain probable gains which I might reasonably
expect in the future, I would be amply compensated if I were to hand
all over to the Commonwealth for the merely nominal sum of half a
million dinars--500,000. ‘A sum which,’ I continued, ‘is of little
moment to your Majesty; especially as it will be met by the taxation
of your willing and loyal subjects.’
“The matter was at once concluded. My great act of renunciation was
everywhere acclaimed with transports of public joy. Every honour
was heaped upon me. The King himself pronounced my panegyric at the
farewell banquet given in my honour, and an inscription was ordered
to be encrusted in the most gorgeous tiles on the chief gate of the
city: ‘On the tenth day of the month Shaaban in the three hundred and
third year from the Flight of the Prophet, by the act of Mahmoud the
Magnificent all citizens became in the matter of PIPKINS his common
heirs.’”
The Merchant had been so moved by these old memories that he had
difficulty in proceeding. He was silent for a few moments, and then
ended in a more subdued tone.
“The sum of 500,000 dinars, well packed, will load without discomfort
some dozen camels. These and their drivers were provided me by a
grateful nation. I passed out of the town at sunrise, attended by a
vast concourse of the populace who pressed round me in a delirium of
grateful cries, and so took my way eastward across the mountains and
left this happy vale forever.”
At that moment the detestable falsetto of the Muezzin was heard from
the neighbouring minaret, and the boys, all dazed at the recital of
such triumphs, left the presence of their uncle as though it had been
that of a God.
القنطرة
AL-KANTARA
That is:
THE BRIDGE