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Supply and Demand
by
“‘New York,’ chips in the Noble Grand. ‘I know,’ says he, grinning. ‘It ain’t the first time you’ve seen it go down on the blotter. I can tell by the way you hand it out. Well, explain “capitalist.”‘
“I tells this boss plain what I come for and how I come to came.
“‘Gold-dust ?’ says he, looking as puzzled as a baby that’s got a feather stuck on its molasses finger. ‘That’s funny. This ain’t a gold-mining country. And you invested all your capital on a stranger’s story? Well, well! These Indians of mine–they are the last of the tribe of Peehes–are simple as children. They know nothing of the purchasing power of gold. I’m afraid you’ve been imposed on,’ says he.
“‘Maybe so,’ says I, ‘but it sounded pretty straight to me.’
“‘W. D.,’ says the King, all of a sudden, ‘I’ll give you a square deal. It ain’t often I get to talk to a white man, and I’ll give you a show for your money. It may be these constituents of mine have a few grains of gold-dust hid away in their clothes. To-morrow you may get out these goods you’ve brought up and see if you can make any sales. Now, I’m going to introduce myself unofficially. My name is Shane–Patrick Shane. I own this tribe of Peche Indians by right of conquest–single handed and unafraid. I drifted up here four years ago, and won ’em by my size and complexion and nerve. I learned their language in six weeks-it’s easy: you simply emit a string of consonants as long as your breath holds out and then point at what you’re asking for.
“‘I conquered ’em, spectacularly,’ goes on King Shane, ‘and then I went at ’em with economical politics, law, sleight-of-hand, and a kind of New England ethics and parsimony. Every Sunday, or as near as I can guess at it, I preach to ’em in the council-house (I’m the council) on the law of supply and demand. I praise supply and knock demand. I use the same text every time. You wouldn’t think, W. D.,’ says Shane, ‘that I had poetry in me, would you?’
“‘Well,’ says I, ‘I wouldn’t know whether to call it poetry or not.’
“‘Tennyson,’ says Shane, ‘furnishes the poetic gospel I preach. I always considered him the boss poet. Here’s the way the text goes:
“For, not to admire, if a man could learn it, were more Than to walk all day like a Sultan of old in a garden of spice.”
“‘You see, I teach ’em to cut out demand–that supply is the main thing. I teach ’em not to desire anything beyond their simplest needs. A little mutton, a little cocoa, and a little fruit brought up from the coast–that’s all they want to make ‘cm happy. I’ve got ’em well trained. They make their own clothes and hats out of a vegetable fibre and straw, and they’re a contented lot. It’s a great thing,’ winds up Shane, ‘to have made a people happy by the incultivation of such simple institutions.’
“Well, the next day, with the King’s permission, I has the McClintock open up a couple of sacks of my goods in the little plaza of the village. The Indians swarmed around by the hundred and looked the bargain-counter over. I shook red blankets at ’em, flashed finger- rings and ear-bobs, tried pearl necklaces and sidecombs on the women, and a line of red hosiery on the men. ‘Twas no use. They looked on like hungry graven images, but I never made a sale. I asked McClintock what was the trouble. Mac yawned three or four times, rolled a cigarette, made one or two confidential side remarks to a mule, and then condescended to inform me that the people had no money.