delays the cultivation of his land, since he enables me to realise a
lucrative labour, it is quite natural that I should let him partake, in
a certain proportion, of the profits which I shall gain by the sacrifice
he makes of his own."

On his side, Mathurin, who was something of a scholar, made this
calculation:--"Since, by virtue of the first clause, the sack of corn
will return to me at the end of a year," he said to himself, "I shall be
able to lend it again; it will return to me at the end of the second
year; I may lend it again, and so on, to all eternity. However, I cannot
deny that it will have been eaten long ago. It is singular that I should
be perpetually the owner of a sack of corn, although the one I have lent
has been consumed for ever. But this is explained thus:--It will be
consumed in the service of Jerome. It will put it into the power of
Jerome to produce a superior value; and, consequently, Jerome will be
able to restore me a sack of corn, or the value of it, without having
suffered the slightest injury: but quite the contrary. And as regards
myself, this value ought to be my property, as long as I do not consume
it myself. If I had used it to clear my land, I should have received it
again in the form of a fine harvest. Instead of that, I lend it, and
shall recover it in the form of repayment.

"From the second clause, I gain another piece of information. At the end
of the year I shall be in possession of five litres of corn over the one
hundred that I have just lent. If, then, I were to continue to work by
the day, and to save part of my wages, as I have been doing, in the
course of time I should be able to lend two sacks of corn; then three;
then four; and when I should have gained a sufficient number to enable
me to live on these additions of five litres over and above each, I
shall be at liberty to take a little repose in my old age. But how is
this? In this case, shall I not be living at the expense of others? No,
certainly, for it has been proved that in lending I perform a service; I
complete the labour of my borrowers, and only deduct a trifling part of
the excess of production, due to my lendings and savings. It is a
marvellous thing that a man may thus realise a leisure which injures no
one, and for which he cannot be envied without injustice."

The House.

Mondor had a house. In building it, he had extorted nothing from any one
whatever. He owed it to his own personal labour, or,