The Genial Idiot

that gentleman, after going through all his pockets, and finding nothi

got a q

re mintage of 1903, circulated for a sho

liomaniac, who prided himself on being a numismatist of

, Experience,"

ut it?" demanded

ns it is very difficult to amass them in any considerable quantity. 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

id the Doctor, amiably, "but would you mind lending me that quart

t of my mouth than they are verified. Hardly a minute elapses from the time Docto

ty," laughed the Doctor. "It's even rarer with me t

the Idiot, extracting the coin from his pocket, "and

a dollar," sa

ake buckwheat-cakes, or muffins, or your share of the sausages, mind you. Th

a Shylock!" ejac

, like any modern financial institution 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 r

ll lend me that quarter, I won't charge you a cent f

not a safe thing for a financial institution to do, I don't care how solid it is. You don't catch the Chemistry National Bank lending money to

id the Doctor. "Mary, tell the b

h 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,

nything to match with?" said the

Idiot. "We can make it a mental match-a sort of Christi

said th

ejaculated the Idiot. "You lo

cried the Docto

r quits. What am I thin

repeated

Heads it is. You win. We are q

out the quarter," th

e's one more way out of it. I'll

, holding out the messa

table. "If you want to buy this message back at any time within the next

per up and put it aw

so much security when they

es-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

ever had anything to do with banks except

as much. I borrowed five hundred dollars once from

w," said the

even with 'em. I refused to borrow another cent from their darned old institution. They lost my custom then and there. If it hadn't been for that inconsiderate act I should prob

nks are perfectly justified in protecting themselves as they do. If they didn't demand collateral security they'd

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 gett

"If you can get your note in

g 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 pi

t proposition," said the Doctor. "There ar

you two or three times a week, you'd better go back to the medical school and fit yourself for your real work in life. You never knew a plumber to be so careless of his interests as to clean up a job all at once, and what the plumber is to the household, the physician should be to the individual. Same way with Mr. Brief. With the machinery of the law in its present shape there

lars?" queried

xception also at the banks. The expert burglar very seldom leaves any security for wha

rt in on such a proposition, but it would never last. When you went in to borrow fifteen dollar

iot. "Even under their present system

cried t

he papers that a bank out in Oklahoma had loaned a man ten th

e than Idiocy?" d

my idiocy it would be out ninety-nine hundred and eighty-five dol

Air worth on the

ff," said the Idiot. "Fact is, they've changed it