196 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
issuing some kind of cheap money, — some sort of 
brass or paper token, which they could make by 
machinery whenever the treasury became empty. 
But to do anything of this sort successfully would 
require the consent and co-operation of Clermont. 
And the merchants and bankers of Clermont said 
that gold was good enough for them. Besides, in 
France ‘the burnt child dreads the fire,” and the 
best people were cowardly in the presence of great 
financial reforms. So, by way of compromise, they 
agreed to extend the octroi to twenty-seven arti- 
cles, — mostly articles of food or clothing which 
had been brought in from Clermont or from the 
mountains of the Puy-de-Déme. The workman 
Jacques was dismissed with a pair of boots, for 
which the mayor himself paid. Jacques left the 
council-chamber satisfied, and the crisis was averted. 
And now money flowed in again to Issoire. 
The farmers who brought in onions paid a little, 
the boy who pulled water-cresses a little, the milk- 
men a little, the vine-growers a good deal more, 
but most of all came in from the merchants of 
Clermont, who in spite of all discouragement still 
persisted in carrying cheap goods to Issoire. 
Prices went up, —a sure index of prosperity. It 
was easy to pay one’s debts, easier still to make 
new ones; but the great thing was that the money 
was keptin town. To go from hand to hand, from 
hand to hand, and then from hand to hand again, 
as in the endless round of the fairy tale, — that is 
what money is for. Factories sprang up as if by 
magic, and down the long white highways multi- 
tudes of the crushed and down-trodden of other 
