"I thought you would," said the Idiot. "That's the reason why I worked up that awful one on myself. That relieves me of all suspicion."

IV

HE DISCUSSES FINANCE

A messenger had just brought a "collect" telegram for the Doctor, and that gentleman, after going through all his pockets, and finding nothing but a bunch of keys and a prescription-pad, made the natural inquiry:

"Anybody got a quarter?"

"I have," said the Idiot. "One of the rare mintage of 1903, circulated for a short time only and warranted good as new."

"I didn't know the 1903 quarter was rare," said the Bibliomaniac, who prided himself on being a numismatist of rare ability. "Who told you the 1903 quarter was rare?"

"My old friend, Experience," said the Idiot.

"What's rare about it?" demanded the Bibliomaniac.

"Why--it's what they call ready money, spot cash, the real thing with the water squeezed out, selling at par on sight," explained the Idiot.

"Millions of people never saw one, and under modern conditions it is very difficult to ama.s.s them in any considerable quant.i.ty. What is worse, even if you happen to get one of them it is next to impossible to hang on to it without unusual effort. If you have a 1903 quarter in your pocket, somehow or other the idea that it is in your possession seems to communicate itself to others, and every effort is made to lure it away from you on some pretext or other."

"Excuse me for interrupting this lecture of yours, Mr. Idiot," said the Doctor, amiably, "but would you mind lending me that quarter to pay this messenger? I've left my change in my other clothes."

"What did I tell you?" cried the Idiot, triumphantly. "The words are no sooner out of my mouth than they are verified. Hardly a minute elapses from the time Doctor Capsule learns that I have that quarter before he puts in an application for it."

"Well, I renew the application in spite of its rarity," laughed the Doctor. "It's even rarer with me than it is with you. Sh.e.l.l out--there's a good chap."

"I will if you'll put up a dollar for security," said the Idiot, extracting the coin from his pocket, "and give me a demand note at thirty days for the quarter."

"I haven't got a dollar," said the Doctor.

"Well, what other collateral have you to offer?" asked the Idiot. "I won't take buckwheat-cakes, or m.u.f.fins, or your share of the sausages, mind you. They come under the head of wild-cat securities--here to-day and gone to-morrow."

"My, but you're a Shylock!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Brief.

"Not a bit of it," retorted the Idiot. "If I were Shylock I'd be willing to take a steak for security, but there's none of the pound of flesh business about me. I simply proceed cautiously, like any modern financial inst.i.tution that intends to stay in the ring more than two weeks. I'm not one of your fortnightly trust companies with an oak table, an unpaid bill for office rent, and a patent reversible disappearing president for its a.s.sets. I do business on the national-bank principle: millions for the rich, but not one cent for the man that needs the money."

"I tell you what I'll do," said the Doctor. "If you'll lend me that quarter, I won't charge you a cent for my professional services next time you need them."

"That's a large offer, but I'm afraid of it," replied the Idiot. "It partakes of the nature of a speculation. It's dealing in futures, which is not a safe thing for a financial inst.i.tution to do, I don't care how solid it is. You don't catch the Chemistry National Bank lending money to anybody on mere prospects, and, what is more, in my case, I'd have to get sick to win out. No, Doctor, that proposition does not appeal to me."

"Looks hopeless, doesn't it," said the Doctor. "Mary, tell the boy to wait while I run up-stairs--"

"I wouldn't do that," said the Idiot, interrupting. "The matter can be arranged in another way. I honestly don't like to lend money, believing with Polonius that it's a bad thing to do. As the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina, who owed him a hundred dollars, 'It's a long time between payments on account,' and that sort of thing breaks up families, not to mention friendships. But I will match you for it."

"How can I match when I haven't anything to match with?" said the Doctor, growing a trifle irritable.

"You can match your credit against my quarter," said the Idiot. "We can make it a mental match--a sort of Christian Science gamble. What am I thinking of, heads or tails?"

"Heads," said the Doctor.

"By Jove, that's hard luck!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Idiot. "You lose. I was thinking of tails."

"Oh, thunder!" cried the Doctor, impatiently.

"Try it again, double or quits. What am I thinking of?" said the Idiot.

"Heads," repeated the Doctor.

"Somebody must have told you. Heads it is. You win. We are quits, Doctor," said the Idiot.

"But I am still without the quarter," the physician observed.

"Yep," said the Idiot. "But there's one more way out of it. I'll buy the telegram from you--C.O.D."

"Done," said the Doctor, holding out the message. "Here's your goods."

"And there's your money," said the Idiot, tossing the quarter across the table. "If you want to buy this message back at any time within the next sixty days, Doctor, I'll give you the refusal of it without extra charge."

And he folded the paper up and put it away in his pocketbook.

"Do the banks really ask for so much security when they make a loan?"

asked the Poet.

"Hear him, will you!" cried the Idiot. "There's your lucky man. He's never had to face a bank president in order to avoid the cold glances of the grocer. No cashier ever asked him how many times he had been sentenced to states-prison before he'd discount his note. Do they ask security? Security isn't the name for it. They demand a blockade, establish a quarantine. They require the would-be debtor to build up a wall as high as Chimborazo and as invulnerable as Gibraltar between them and the loss before they will part with a dime. Why, they wouldn't discount a note to his own order for Andrew Carnegie for seventeen cents without his indors.e.m.e.nt. Do they ask security!"

"Well, I didn't know," said the Poet. "I never had anything to do with banks except as a small depositor in the savings-bank."

"Fortunate man," said the Idiot. "I wish I could say as much. I borrowed five hundred dollars once from a bank, and what the deuce do you suppose they did?"

"I don't know," said the Poet. "What?"

"They made me pay it back," said the Idiot, mournfully, "although I needed it just as much when it was due as when I borrowed it. The cashier was a friend of mine, too. But I got even with 'em. I refused to borrow another cent from their darned old inst.i.tution. They lost my custom then and there. If it hadn't been for that inconsiderate act I should probably have gone on borrowing from them for years, and instead of owing them nothing to-day, as I do, I should have been their debtor to the tune of two or three thousand dollars."

"Don't you take any stock in what the Idiot tells you in that matter, Mr. Poet," said Mr. Brief. "The national banks are perfectly justified in protecting themselves as they do. If they didn't demand collateral security they'd be put out of business in fifteen minutes by people like the Idiot, who consider it a hardship to have to pay up."

"As the lady said when she was asked the name of her favorite author, 'Pshaw!'" retorted the Idiot. "Likewise fudge--a whole panful of fudges!

I don't object to paying my debts; fact is, I know of no greater pleasure. What I do object to is the kind of collateral the banks demand. They always want something a man hasn't got and, in most cases, hasn't any chance of getting. If I had a thousand-dollar bond I wouldn't need to borrow five hundred dollars, yet when I go to the bank and ask for the five hundred the thousand-dollar bond is what they ask for."

"Not always," said Mr. Brief. "If you can get your note indorsed you can get the money."

"That's true enough, but fellows like myself can't always find a captain of industry who is willing to take a long-shot to do the indorsing,"

said the Idiot. "Besides, under the indors.e.m.e.nt plan you merely ask another man to be responsible for your debt, and that isn't fair. The whole system is wrong. Every man to his own collateral, I say. Give me the bank that will lend money to the chap that needs it on the security of his own product. Mr. Whitechoker, say, is short on cash and long on sermons. My style of bank would take one barrel of his sermons and salt 'em down in the safe-deposit company as security for the money he needs.

The Poet here, finding the summer approaching and not a cent in hand to replenish his wardrobe, should be able to secure an advance of two or three hundred dollars on his sonnets, rondeaux, and lyrics--one dollar for each two-and-a-half-dollar sonnet, and so on. The grocer should be able to borrow money on his dried apples, his vinegar pickles, his canned asparagus, and other non-perishable a.s.sets, such as dog-biscuit, Roquefort cheese, and California raisins. The tailor seeking an accommodation of five hundred dollars should not be asked how many times he has been sentenced to jail for arson, and required to pay in ten thousand shares of Steel common, in order to get his grip on the currency, but should be approached appropriately and asked how many pairs of trousers he is willing to pledge as security for the loan."

"I don't know where I would come in on that proposition," said the Doctor. "There are times when we physicians need money, too."