“As might be expected, the Chief Magistrate of the town (my most honoured guest) approached me after dinner and told me privately that he would be happy to oblige. I told him there was no sort of necessity, I could draw what I would on my letters from home, or at any rate enough to meet the case. That if he _really_ cared to share my little adventure I expected about ten per cent. profit on the sum engaged--but indeed it was too small for me to trouble him with it. I accepted his pledge of 100 pieces of gold--but I stoutly refused any paper, ‘Your name is enough,’ I said, ‘I shall gratefully use it. My people will trust my word.’
“I gave out next morning that I was going into the hills to meet a messenger. I did indeed pass through the city gate and proceeded till I was well out of sight; but as there was no sense in fatiguing myself I slept through the heat in a wood, watched through the warm night, and returned travel-stained in the evening of the second day.
“On the morning of the third day I met the Chief Magistrate in the Bazaar: I stopped him, chatted, and then and there paid him eleven pieces of gold. ‘I met my messenger from Tambulistan’ (said I) ‘we exchanged parcels, and I find I have netted just over the ten per cent. These eleven pieces are your proportion upon your kind investment of 100.’ He protested of course that it had been no investment, merely a few friendly words of support; but he took the money, and I could see that he was pleased. He was curiously pleased. Indeed, he was so pleased that, though a discreet man, he could not forbear mentioning the matter to his wife. Rich men love small windfalls.
“In a few hours, therefore, the Head Mufti, the Chief of the Guard, and two very important councillors had in their various ways touched casually upon the wheat trade during short conversations in which each had separately engaged me under the shades of the Bazaar. A little later, as I took the air by the riverside at evening, the principal Ascetic of the district, who had come in to buy his few lentils for the week, spoke to me briefly of the same matter. I gave each of them a different answer, alluding to various cargoes of wheat, caravans of wheat and tumbrils of wheat--all in technical terms; to risks, to covering sums, to transfers from one district to another. In each case I refused anything but a pledge to stand in with a transaction somewhat beyond my unaided powers; in each case I ridiculed the smallness of the little adventure; in each case I paid, after the lapse of a few days, to one a single piece of gold as his profit, to another two, to another three. And each was very pleased.