The Mercy of Allah: Essay. Hilaire Belloc

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ