Off on a Comet
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Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 Next page 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 you? 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. 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 governor 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 governor'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, labeled 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, is 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. CHAPTER X FAR INTO SPACE A month passed away. Gallia continued its course, bearing its little population onwards, so far removed from the ordinary influence of human passions that it might almost be said that its sole ostensible vice was represented by the greed and avarice of the miserable Jew. After all, they were but making a voyage--a strange, yet a transient, excursion through solar regions hitherto untraversed; but if the professor's calculations were correct--and why should they be doubted?--their little vessel was destined, after a two years' absence, once more to return "to port." The landing, indeed, might be a matter of difficulty; but with the good prospect before them of once again standing on terrestrial shores, they had nothing to do at present except to make themselves as comfortable as they could in their present quarters. Thus confident in their anticipations, neither the captain, the count, nor the lieutenant felt under any serious obligation to make any extensive provisions for the future; they saw no necessity for expending the strength of the people, during the short summer that would intervene upon the long severity of winter, in the cultivation or the preservation of their agricultural resources. Nevertheless, they often found themselves talking over the measures they would have been driven to adopt, if they had found themselves permanently attached to their present home. Even after the turning-point in their career, they knew that at least nine months would have to elapse before the sea would be open to navigation; but at the very first arrival of summer they would be bound to arrange for the _Dobryna_ and the _Hansa_ to retransport themselves and all their animals to the shores of Gourbi Island, where they would have to commence their agricultural labors to secure the crops that must form their winter store. During four months or thereabouts, they would lead the lives of farmers and of sportsmen; but no sooner would their haymaking and their corn harvest have |
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