CHAPTER X.MARKET PRICES IN GALLIA.
“All right!” said Servadac, convinced by the professor's
ill humour that the danger was past; “no doubt we are
in for a two years' excursion, but fifteen months more will
take us back to the earth!”
“And we shall see Montmartre again!” exclaimed Ben
Zoof, in tones that betrayed his delight in the anticipation.
To use a nautical expression, they had safely “rounded
the point,” and they had to be congratulated on their
successful navigation; for if, under the influence of Jupiter's
attraction, the comet had been retarded for a single hour,
in that hour the earth would have already travelled
2,500,000 miles from the point where contact would ensue,
and many centuries would elapse before such a coincidence
would possibly again occur.
On the 1st of November Gallia and Jupiter were
40,000,000 miles apart. It was little more than ten weeks
to the 15th of January, when the comet would begin to
re-approach the sun. Though light and heat were now
reduced to a twenty-fifth part of their terrestrial intensity,
so that a perpetual twilight seemed to have settled over
Gallia, yet the population felt cheered even by the little
that was left, and buoyed up by the hope that they should
ultimately regain their proper position with regard to the
great luminary, of which the temperature has been estimated
as not less than 5,000,000 degrees.
Of the anxiety endured during the last two months
Isaac Hakkabut had known nothing. Since the day he
had done his lucky stroke of business he had never left the
tartan; and after Ben Zoof, on the following day, had returned
the steelyard and the borrowed cash, receiving back
the paper roubles deposited, all communication between the
Jew and Nina's Hive had ceased. In the course of the
few minutes' conversation which Ben Zoof had held with
him, he had mentioned that he knew that the whole soil
of Gallia was made of gold; but the old man, guessing
that the orderly was only laughing at him as usual, paid
no attention to the remark, and only meditated upon the
means he could devise to get every bit of the money in the
new world into his own possession.
No one grieved over the life of solitude which Hakkabut
persisted in leading. Ben Zoof giggled heartily, as he
repeatedly observed “it was astonishing how they reconciled
themselves to his absence.”
The time came, however, when various circumstances
prompted him to think he must renew his intercourse with
the inhabitants of the Hive. Some of his goods were
beginning to spoil, and he felt the necessity of turning
them into money, if he would not be a loser; he hoped,
moreover, that the scarcity of his commodities would
secure very high prices.
It happened, just about this same time, that Ben Zoof
had been calling his master's attention to the fact that
some of their most necessary provisions would soon be
running short, and that their stock of coffee, sugar, and
tobacco would want replenishing. Servadac's mind, of
course, turned to the cargo on board the Hansa, and he
resolved, according to his promise, to apply to the Jew
and become a purchaser.
Mutual interest and necessity thus conspired to draw
Hakkabut and the captain together.
Often and often had Isaac gloated in his solitude over
the prospect of first selling a portion of his merchandise
for all the gold and silver in the colony. His recent usurious
transaction had whetted his appetite. He would next part
with some more of his cargo for all the paper-money they
could give him; but still he should have goods left, and
they would want these. Yes, they should have these too
for promissory notes. Notes would hold good when they
got back again to the earth; bills from his Excellency the
governour would be good bills; anyhow there would be the
sheriff By the God of Israel! he would get good prices,
and he would get fine interest!
Although he did not know it, he was proposing to
follow the practice of the Gauls of old, who advanced
money on bills for payment in a future life. Hakkabut's
“future life,” however, was not many months in advance
of the present.
Still Hakkabut hesitated to make the first advance, and
it was accordingly with much satisfaction that he hailed
Captain Servadac's appearance on board the Hansa.
“Hakkabut,” said the captain, plunging without further
preface into business, “we want some coffee, some tobacco,
and other things. I have come to-day to order them, to
settle the price, and to-morrow Ben Zoof shall fetch the
goods away.”
“Merciful heavens!” the Jew began to whine; but
Servadac cut him short.
“None of that miserable howling! Business! I am
come to buy your goods. I shall pay for them.”
“Ah yes, your Excellency,” whispered the Jew, his
voice trembling like a street beggar. “Don't impose on
me. I am poor; I am nearly ruined already.”
“Cease your wretched whining. I say!” cried Servadac.
“I have told you once, I shall pay for all I
buy.”
“Ready money?” asked Hakkabut.
“Yes, ready money. What makes you ask?” said the
captain, curious to hear what the Jew would say.
“Well, you see—you see, your Excellency,” stammered
out the Jew, “to give credit to one wouldn't do, unless I
gave credit to another. You are solvent—I mean honourable,
and his lordship the count is honourable; but maybe—maybe—”
“Well?” said Servadac, waiting, but inclined to kick
the old rascal out of his sight.
“I shouldn't like to give credit,” he repeated.
“I have not asked you for credit. I have told you,
you shall have ready money.”
“Very good, your Excellency. But how will you pay
me?”
“Pay yon? Why, we shall pay you in gold and silver
and copper, while our money lasts, and when that is gone
we shall pay you in bank-notes.”
“Oh, no paper, no paper!” groaned out the Jew, relapsing
into his accustomed whine.
“Nonsense, man!” cried Servadac.
“No paper!” reiterated Hakkabut.
“Why not? Surely you can trust the banks of England, France, and Russia.”
“Ah no! I must have gold. Nothing so safe as gold.”
“Well then,” said the captain, not wanting to lose his
temper, “you shall have it your own way; we have plenty
of gold for the present We will leave the bank-notes for
by-and-by.”
The Jew's countenance brightened, and Servadac, repeating
that he should come again the next day, was about
to quit the vessel.
“One moment, your Excellency,” said Hakkabut,
sidling up with a hypocritical smile; “I suppose I am to
fix my own prices.”
“You will, of course, charge ordinary prices—proper
market-prices; European prices, I mean.”
“Merciful heavens!” shrieked the old man, “you
rob me of my rights; you defraud me of my privilege.
The monopoly of the market belongs to me. It is the
custom; it is my right; it is my privilege to fix my own
prices.”
Servadac made him understand that he had no intention
of swerving from his decision.
“Merciful heavens!” again howled the Jew, “it is sheer
ruin. The time of monopoly is the time for profit; it is
the time for speculation.”
“The very thing, Hakkabut, that I am anxious to
prevent. Just stop now, and think a minute. You seem
to forget my rights; you are forgetting that, if I please, I
can confiscate all your cargo for the common use. You
ought to think yourself lucky in getting any price at all.
Be contented with European prices; you will get no more.
However, I am not going to waste my breath on you. I
will come again to-morrow;” and, without allowing Hakkabut
time to renew his lamentations, Servadac went
away.
All the rest of the day the Jew was muttering bitter
curses against the thieves of Gentiles in general, and the
Governour of Gallia in particular, who were robbing him of
his just profits, by binding him down to a maximum price
for his goods, just as if it were a time of revolution in the
state. But he would be even with them yet; he would
have it all out of them: he would make European prices
pay, after all. He had a plan—he knew how; and he
chuckled to himself, and grinned maliciously.
True to his word, the captain next morning arrived at
the tartan. He was accompanied by Ben Zoof and two
Russian sailors.
“Good morning, old Eleazar; we have come to do our
little bit of friendly business with you, you know,” was Ben
Zoof s greeting.
“What do you want to-day?” asked the Jew.
“To-day we want coffee, and we want sugar, and we
want tobacco. We must have ten kilogrammes of each.
Take care they are all good; all first-rate. I am commissariat
officer, and I am responsible.”
“I thought you were the governour's aide-de-camp,”
said Hakkabut.
“So I am, on state occasions; but to-day, I tell you,
I am superintendent of the commissariat department. Now,
look sharp!”
Hakkabut hereupon descended into the hold of the
tartan, and soon returned, carrying ten packets of tobacco,
each weighing one kilogramme, and securely fastened by
strips of paper, labelled with the French Government stamp.
“Ten kilogrammes of tobacco at twelve francs a kilogramme:
a hundred and twenty francs,” said the Jew.
Ben Zoof was on the point of laying down the money,
when Servadac stopped him.
“Let us just see whether the weight is correct.”
Hakkabut pointed out that the weight was duly
registered on every packet, and that the packets had never
been unfastened.
The captain, however, had his own special object in
view, and would not be diverted.
The Jew fetched his steelyard, and a packet of the
tobacco was suspended to it.
“Merciful heavens!” screamed Isaac.
The index registered only 133 grammes!
“You see, Hakkabut, I was right. I was perfectly
justified in having your goods put to the test,” said Servadac,
quite seriously.
“But—but, your Excellency” stammered out the
bewildered man.
“You will, of course, make up the deficiency,” the
captain continued, not noticing the interruption.
“Oh, my lord, let me say” began Isaac again.
“Come, come, old Caiaphas, do you hear? You are to
make up the deficiency,” exclaimed Ben Zoof.
“Ah, yes, yes; but—”
The unfortunate Israelite tried hard to speak, but his
agitation prevented him. He understood well enough the
cause of the phenomenon, but he was overpowered by the
conviction that the “cursed Gentiles” wanted to cheat him.
He deeply regretted that he had not a pair of common
scales on board.
“Come, I say, old Jedediah, you are a long while
making up what's short,” said Ben Zoof, while the Jew was
still stammering on.
As soon as he recovered his power of articulation, Isaac
began to pour out a medley of lamentations and petitions
for mercy.
The captain was inexorable.
“Very sorry, you know, Hakkabut. It is not my fault
that the packet is short weight; but I cannot pay for a
kilogramme except I have a kilogramme.”
Hakkabut pleaded for some consideration.
“A bargain is a bargain,” said Servadac. “You must
complete your contract.”
And, moaning and groaning, the miserable man was
driven to make up the full weight as registered by his own
steelyard. He had to repeat the process with the sugar
and coffee: for every kilogramme he had to weigh seven.
Ben Zoof and the Russians jeered him most unmercifully.
“I say, old Mordecai, wouldn't you rather give your
goods away, than sell them at this rate? I would.”
“I say, old Pilate, a monopoly isn't always a good
thing, in it?”
“I say, old Sepharvaim, what a flourishing trade you're
driving!”
Meanwhile seventy kilogrammes of each of the articles
required were weighed, and the Jew for each seventy had
to take the price of ten.
All along Captain Servadac had been acting only in jest.
Aware that old Isaac was an utter hypocrite, he had no
compunction in turning a business transaction with him
into an occasion for a bit of fun. But the joke at an end,
he took care that the Jew was properly paid all his legitimate
due.
The party then quitted the Hansa; Ben Zoof, who was
in the highest spirits, on his way to the Hive singing in a
stentorian voice the chorus of an old military song:—
“Right joyous to the warrior's ear,
The clarion-trumpet bright and clear;
But joyous too, yea, welcome more,
The music of the cannon's roar!”
