‘Although we are yet some way from our hotel,’ remarked Popanilla’s
conductor, ‘we have now arrived at a part of the city where I can ease
you, without difficulty, from your troublesome burthen; let us enter
here!’
As he spoke, they stopped before a splendid palace, and proceeding
through various halls full of individuals apparently intently busied,
the companions were at last ushered into an apartment of smaller size,
but of more elegant character. A personage of prepossessing appearance
was lolling on a couch of an appearance equally prepossessing. Before
him, on a table, were some papers, exquisite fruits, and some liqueurs.
Popanilla was presented, and received with fascinating complaisance. His
friend stated the object of their visit, and handed the sackful of gold
to the gentleman on the sofa. The gentleman on the sofa ordered a couple
of attendants to ascertain its contents. While this computation was
going on he amused his guests by his lively conversation, and charmed
Popanilla by his polished manners and easy civility. He offered him,
during his stay in Vraibleusia, the use of a couple of equipages,
a villa, and an opera-box; insisted upon sending to his hotel some
pine-apples and some rare wine, and gave him a perpetual ticket to his
picture-gallery. When his attendants had concluded their calculation,
he ordered them to place Popanilla’s precious metal in his treasury;
and then, presenting the Captain with a small packet of pink shells, he
kindly inquired whether he could be of any further use to him. Popanilla
was loth to retire without his gold, of the utility of which, in spite
of the convenience of competition, he seemed to possess an instinctive
conception; but as his friend rose and withdrew, he could do nothing
less than accompany him; for, having now known him nearly half a day,
his confidence in his honour and integrity was naturally unbounded.
‘That was the King, of course?’ said Popanilla, when they were fairly
out of the palace.
‘The King!’ said the unknown, nearly surprised into an exclamation; ‘by
no means!’
‘And what then?’
‘My good friend! is it possible that you have no bankers in your
country?’
‘Yes, it is very possible; but we have mermaids, who also give us shells
which are pretty. What then are your bankers?’
‘Really, my good friend, that is a question which I never remember
having been asked before; but a banker is a man who keeps our money for
us.’
‘Ah! and he is bound, I suppose, to return your money, when you choose?’
‘Most assuredly!’
‘He is, then, in fact, your servant: you must pay him handsomely, for
him to live so well?’
‘By no means! we pay him nothing.’
‘That is droll; he must be very rich then?’
‘Really, my dear friend, I cannot say. Why, yes! I--I suppose he may be
very rich!’
‘Tis singular that a rich man should take so much trouble for others!’
‘My good friend! of course he lives by his trouble.’
‘Ah! How, then,’ continued the inquisitive Fantaisian, ‘if you do not
pay him for his services, and he yet lives by them; how, I pray, does he
acquire these immense riches?’
‘Really, my good sir, I am, in truth, the very last man in the world to
answer questions: he is a banker; bankers are always rich; but why they
are, or how they are, I really never had time to inquire. But I suppose,
if the truth were known, they must have very great opportunities.’
‘Ah! I begin to see,’ said Popanilla. ‘It was really very kind of
him,’ continued the Captain, ‘to make me a present of these little pink
shells: what would I not give to turn them into a necklace, and send it
to a certain person at Fantaisie!’
‘It would be a very expensive necklace,’ observed his companion, almost
surprised. ‘I had no idea, I confess, from your appearance, that in your
country they indulged in such expensive tastes in costume.’
‘Expensive!’ said Popanilla. ‘We certainly have no such shells as these
in Fantaisie; but we have much more beautiful ones. I should think, from
their look, they must be rather common.’
His conductor for the first time nearly laughed. ‘I forgot,’ said
he, ‘that you could not be aware that these pink shells are the most
precious coin of the land, compared with which those bits of gold with
which you have recently parted are nothing; your whole fortune is now
in that little packet. The fact is,’ continued the unknown, making an
effort to communicate, ‘although we possess in this country more of the
precious metals than all the rest of the world together, the quantity is
nevertheless utterly disproportioned to the magnitude of our wealth and
our wants. We have been, therefore, under the necessity of resorting
to other means of representing the first and supplying the second; and,
taking advantage of our insular situation, we have introduced these
small pink shells, which abound all round the coast. Being much more
convenient to carry, they are in general circulation, and no genteel
person has ever anything else in his pocket.’
‘Wonderful! But surely, then, it is no very difficult thing in this
country to accumulate a fortune, since all that is necessary to give you
every luxury of life is a stroll one morning of your existence along the
beach?’
‘By no means, my friend! you are really too rapid. The fact is, that
no one has the power of originally circulating these shells but our
Government; and if any one, by any chance, choose to violate this
arrangement, we make up for depriving him of his solitary walks on the
shore by instant submersion in the sea.’
‘Then the whole circulation of the country is at the mercy of your
Government?’ remarked Popanilla, summoning to his recollection the
contents of one of those shipwrecked brochures which had exercised so
strange an influence on his destiny. ‘Suppose they do not choose to
issue?’
‘That is always guarded against. The mere quarterly payments of interest
upon our national debt will secure an ample supply.’
‘Debt! I thought you were the richest nation in the world?’
‘Tis true; nevertheless, if there were a golden pyramid with a base as
big as the whole earth and an apex touching the heavens, it would not
supply us with sufficient metal to satisfy our creditors.’
‘But, my dear sir,’ exclaimed the perplexed Popanilla, ‘if this really
be true, how then can you be said to be the richest nation in the
world?’
‘It is very simple. The annual interest upon our debt exceeds the whole
wealth of the rest of the world; therefore we must be the richest nation
in the world.’
‘Tis true,’ said Popanilla; ‘I see I have yet much to learn. But with
regard to these pink shells, how can you possibly create for them a
certain standard of value? It is merely agreement among yourselves that
fixes any value to them.’
‘By no means! you are so rapid! Each shell is immediately convertible
into gold; of which metal, let me again remind you, we possess more than
any other nation; but which, indeed, we only keep as a sort of dress
coin, chiefly to indulge the prejudices of foreigners.’
‘But,’ said the perpetual Popanilla, ‘suppose every man who held a shell
on the same day were to--’
‘My good friend! I really am the last person in the world to give
explanations. In Vraibleusia, we have so much to do that we have no time
to think; a habit which only becomes nations who are not employed. You
are now fast approaching the Great Shell Question; a question which, I
confess, affects the interests of every man in this island more than any
other; but of which, I must candidly own, every man in this island is
more ignorant than of any other. No one, however, can deny that the
system works well; and if anything at any time go wrong, why really
Mr. Secretary Periwinkle is a wonderful man, and our most eminent
conchologist. He, no doubt, will set it right; and if, by any chance,
things are past even his management, why then, I suppose, to use our
national motto, something will turn up.’
Here they arrived at the hotel. Having made every arrangement for
the comfort and convenience of the Fantaisian stranger, Popanilla’s
conductor took his leave, previously informing him that his name was
Skindeep; that he was a member of one of the largest families in the
island; that, had he not been engaged to attend a lecture, he would have
stayed and dined with him; but that he would certainly call upon him on
the morrow.
Compared with his hotel the palace of his banker was a dungeon; even the
sunset voluptuousness of Fantaisie was now remembered without regret
in the blaze of artificial light and in the artificial gratification
of desires which art had alone created. After a magnificent repast, his
host politely inquired of Popanilla whether he would like to go to the
Opera, the comedy, or a concert; but the Fantaisian philosopher was not
yet quite corrupted; and, still inspired with a desire to acquire useful
knowledge, he begged his landlord to procure him immediately a pamphlet
on the Shell Question.
While his host was engaged in procuring this luxury a man entered the
room and told Popanilla that he had walked that day two thousand five
hundred paces, and that the tax due to the Excise upon this promenade
was fifty crowns. The Captain stared, and remarked to the excise-officer
that he thought a man’s paces were a strange article to tax. The
excise-officer, with great civility, answered that no doubt at first
sight it might appear rather strange, but that it was the only article
left untaxed in Vraibleusia; that there was a slight deficiency in
the last quarter’s revenue, and that therefore the Government had no
alternative; that it was a tax which did not press heavily upon the
individual, because the Vraibleusians were of a sedentary habit; that,
besides, it was an opinion every day more received among the best judges
that the more a man was taxed the richer he ultimately would prove; and
he concluded by saying that Popanilla need not make himself uneasy about
these demands, because, if he were ruined to-morrow, being a foreigner,
he was entitled by the law of the land to five thousand a-year; whereas
he, the excise-man, being a native-born Vraibleusian, had no claims
whatever upon the Government; therefore he hoped his honour would give
him something to drink.
His host now entered with the ‘Novum Organon’ of the great Periwinkle.
While Popanilla devoured the lively pages of this treatise, he
discovered that the system which had been so subtilely introduced by the
Government, and which had so surprised him in the morning, had soon been
adopted in private life; and although it was a drowning matter to pick
up pink shells, still there was nothing to prevent the whole commerce
of the country from being carried on by means of a system equally
conchological. He found that the social action in every part of the
island was regulated and assisted by this process. Oyster-shells were
first introduced; muscle-shells speedily followed; and, as commerce
became more complicate, they had even been obliged to have recourse to
snail-shells. Popanilla retired to rest with admiration of the people
who thus converted to the most useful purposes things apparently so
useless. There was no saying now what might not be done even with a
nutshell. It was evident that the nation who contrived to be the richest
people in the world while they were over head and ears in debt must be
fast approaching to a state of perfection. Finally, sinking to sleep in
a bed of eiderdown, Popanilla was confirmed in his prejudices against a
state of nature.