How to be poor

In vain. The trader was
determined: the price went down to nine thousand, then to seven, six, four and
two thousand.
    Joe stopped saying no, which was
becoming monotonous. He just walked on in silence.
    “As a very special favour to you:
eight hundred.”
    No reply.
    “Seven hundred.”
    No reply.
    “Four hundred.”
    Joe shook his head.
    “Six hundred,” said the trader to my
surprise.
    Joe remained silent.
    “Nine hundred,” the trader went on.
    Joe looked worried.
    “One thousand and one hundred,” the
trader said remorselessly.
    Joe stopped, took out his wallet and
paid the man one thousand and one hundred Senegalese francs. The trader handed
over the chain and disappeared as fast as he could.
    “You know, of course,” I said, “that
he had started raising the price? His last offers were going up and up.” Joe
did not reply — I might have been the street trader. I went on: “You could have
bought that chain for four hundred.”
    Still no reply.
    “Why did you buy it at all? And if
you wanted to, why for eleven hundred when you could have got it for almost a
quarter of that price?”
    Joe stopped in his tracks, looking
simultaneously miserable and incredulous, and at last he spoke.
    “I broke down. My nerve snapped. I
just could not resist any longer.” After a moment’s pause he added: “I had to buy it. And I had to buy it before he raised the price to 11,000 again.”

The Best
and the Worst

     
    The worst
business deal I have heard about was, surprisingly,
not my own. It was a deal concluded, or rather not concluded, by a gentleman
called Francis X whom I used to meet in the house of a close friend. My wife,
daughter and I visited Stephen Garrett’s house every Saturday afternoon for
quite a few years and for a while Francis X turned up there regularly, so I met
him frequently without really knowing him well. Indeed, it was impossible to
know him well. Not only was he a man of almost seventy — which amounted to
ridiculous antiquity in my then-young eyes — and not only was he a taciturn
introvert, but he was also a man obviously crushed and tormented by some deep
sorrow or cruel blow which he was unable to forget or overcome. I knew he was a
widower and at first I assumed that the loss of his wife was the grave blow
that had crushed him. But it turned out that he had accepted that loss with
remarkable ease — or shall we say, with admirable courage. My host and friend,
Stephen, was rather discreet about the matter for a long while, but one day he
told me what ailed Francis.
    “You are on the right track. He did
suffer a tragic blow he cannot overcome. It happened long, long ago, when he
was a young man.”
    “Something to do with love?” I asked,
being the romantic soul I am.
    “With love of money,” said Stephen.
    “When he was still in business,” I nodded.
“I know he’s retired now.”
    “Not exactly retired. He had no job
to retire from. He has, and always had, private means.”
    I held my peace and looked
questioning.
    “In his young days he used to have a
friend called Lyons who planned to open a grocery shop. Lyons asked Francis to
be his partner. Not a fifty-fifty partner, just to put a hundred pounds into
the business. Francis pondered over this proposition for weeks. He did not want
to offend young Lyons, but on the other hand a hundred pounds was a lot of
money and he was terrified of losing it. He couldn’t make up his mind. Lyons grew impatient and asked him to say yes or no. He said neither. Then, after further
heart-searching, he offered Lyons fifty pounds. Lyons murmured something
uncomplimentary about his friend’s parsimony and pressed him for a hundred.
Francis was firm. Fifty or nothing. Lyons accepted the fifty.” Stephen stopped,
then added: “That’s all.”
    I thought I understood. Stephen
added: “The firm, as we all know, has become J. Lyons & Co — restaurateurs,
tea importers, bakers, patisserie-people and God knows what — anyway, one of
the industrial giants of this country. Francis used to be a moderately
well-to-do man, now he became rich. In fact, very, very rich.”
    “And that ruined his life?”
    “It did. Because if he had not been
so foolish and mean, and had accepted Lyons’s original suggestion, he would be
twice as rich. He just cannot get over it.”
    A few months afterwards Francis died
of a broken heart. He had no children. He left one and a quarter million pounds
to some animal charity.
    My own business career is