"Well, that's funny," I said. "Did you drop it, or what?"
He handed the keepsake back to me. He also had something of
reproach in his eye.
"Thanks, very much," I said. "I wouldn't have lost it for worlds;
Emily--But I mustn't bore you with the story. Good day to you."
And I gave him a more solid coin and went.
Well, that's how we are at present. A more unscrupulous person
than myself would have palmed it off long ago. He would have told
himself with hateful casuistry that the coin was none the worse
for the air-hole in it, and that, if everybody who came into
possession of it pressed it on to the next man, nobody would be
injured by its circulation. But I cannot argue like this. It
pleases me to give my shilling a run with the others sometimes. I
like to put it down on a counter with one or two more, preferably
in the middle of them where the draught cannot blow through it;
but I should indeed be surprised--I mean sorry--if it did not
come back to me at once.
There is one thing, anyhow, that I will not do. I will not give
it to a waiter or a taxi-driver or to anybody else as a tip. If
you estimate the market value of a shilling with a hole in it at
anything from ninepence to fourpence according to the owner's
chances of getting rid of it, then it might be considered
possibly a handsome, anyhow an adequate, tip for a driver; but
somehow the idea does not appeal to me at all. For if the
recipient did not see the hole, you would feel that you had been
unnecessarily generous to him, and that one last effort to have
got it off on to a shopkeeper would have been wiser; while if he
did see it--well, we know what cabmen are. He couldn't legally
object, it is a voluntary gift on your part, and even regarded as
a contribution to his watch chain worthy of thanks, but--Well, I
don't like it. I don't think it's sportsmanlike.
However, I have an idea at last. I know a small boy who owns some
lead soldiers. I propose to borrow one of these--a corporal or
perhaps a serjeant--and boil him down, and then fill up the hole
in the shilling with lead. Shillings, you know, are not solid
silver; oh no, they have alloy in them. This one will have a
little more than usual perhaps. One cannot tie oneself down to an
ounce or two.
We set out, I believe, to discuss the morals of the question. It
is a most interesting subject.