There is not time in the open
field to measure the corn as we do in the Paris market, or the hay as
it is sold in the Rue d'Enfer. The Arab chiefs, like our Spahis,
prefer hard cash, and sell the plunder at a very low price. The
Commissariat needs a fixed quantity and must have it. It winks at
exorbitant prices calculated on the difficulty of procuring food, and
the dangers to which every form of transport is exposed. That is
Algiers from the army contractor's point of view.
"It is a muddle tempered by the ink-bottle, like every incipient
government. We shall not see our way through it for another ten years
--we who have to do the governing; but private enterprise has sharp
eyes.--So I am sending you there to make a fortune; I give you the
job, as Napoleon put an impoverished Marshal at the head of a kingdom
where smuggling might be secretly encouraged.
"I am ruined, my dear Fischer; I must have a hundred thousand francs
within a year."
"I see no harm in getting it out of the Bedouins," said the Alsatian
calmly. "It was always done under the Empire----"
"The man who wants to buy your business will be here this morning, and
pay you ten thousand francs down," the Baron went on. "That will be
enough, I suppose, to take you to Africa?"
The old man nodded assent.
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