How to be poor

not really
glorious. I have usually kept away from business deals, but occasionally I have
been persuaded to invest in one boom or another. My investment always marked
the end of the boom. If I bought shares, the stock exchange plummetted; if I
bought half a house as an investment — which I did once — house prices fell.
When these things happened I felt a kind of self-schadenfreude, a
masochistic glee: it serves me right, I should keep away from business, just as
Paul Getty should keep away from writing humorous books on poverty. Yet the
most successful business deal I know of — if deal it can be called — is mine,
and it filled me with immense
    joy-
    One day I was playing tennis at
Hurlingham with a man whom I had not met before. He was a Czech, now a
professor at a German university. I knew that much about him but no more: not
even his surname.
    After the game I offered him a lift
to a nearby underground station. He was invited to a party and was a little
late. On our way to the tube station, he discovered a florist’s shop and asked
me to stop so that he could buy some flowers for his hostess. I stopped and
waited for him in the car. Rush-hour traffic was building up and, after his
return, I found it a little difficult to get back into the stream. In such
cases one has to wait for the first gentleman. He turned up soon enough,
stopped and waved me on. I nodded my thanks and started moving — whereupon, to
my utter surprise, so did he, and hit my car. We both got out and examined our
cars. The impact was so slight that neither of us could discover any sign of
it. The man who had hit me told me that he was a bit worried because he was
driving a company car and he had a lot of accidents (I did not remark that I
was not surprised). The company had just paid out for a large sum for repairs
and he would not be very popular if he came along with a new claim. Then he
took the registration number of my car but, on second thoughts, told me: “Yes,
I have taken your registration number but I shall throw it away. No point in
it. You won’t hear from me again.”
    We parted as friends. A few days
later I received a letter from his insurance company, re “the accident
in Fulham”. I was told that an estimate had been asked for repairs and they
would get in touch with me in due course.
    I wrote back and asked them to save
themselves the trouble of getting in touch with me again as I was not really
interested. The so-called accident had been their client’s fault and no one
else’s, since first he had waved me on and then had hit me. In addition, we had
examined our cars on the spot and no damage was visible to the naked eye. And
finally, because their client had assured me that I would not hear from him
again I had not even bothered to take the names of witnesses; indeed, I still
did not know the name of my own passenger.
    A few days later another letter
arrived from the insurance company, making no reference to my letter, just telling
me that according to preliminary estimates the repairs would cost £40. I wrote
back telling them that the matter was becoming ludicrous and that I refused to
waste my time on further correspondence. I was not going to reply to further
communications, if any were sent.
    Further communications were sent. In
the next one I was informed that more thorough examinations proved that the
damage to their client’s car was heavier than originally suspected. The bills
will probably come to £100 and I would get the final figure soon.
    I did not reply.
    A week or so later I got a bill for
£263.17p. I ignored that too.
    A stiff letter followed telling me
that unless I paid £263.17p within seven days they would hand the matter over
to their solicitors.
    I ignored that letter too.
    A letter from the solicitors duly
arrived and told me that unless I paid £263.17p within seven days (it’s always
seven days) they would start legal proceedings against me.
    I looked forward to that with relish,
but still did not reply.
    When the seven days were up, another
letter arrived, this time once again from the insurance company. They were
sending me a cheque for £263.17p. I paid the cheque into my account and never
heard of the matter again.
    I must add a footnote to this,
because while writing this chapter I heard about the least successful crime in
history.
    A gentleman with an Irish name was
sentenced to one month’s imprisonment because he had fiddled with his
electricity meter. And as he had turned