The Mercy of Allah: Essay. Hilaire Belloc

      “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