's
numbers that do it. They mean, if thirty millions of people, each have
twenty sovereigns a-piece in their purses (_doubtfully_), _then_, I
suppose, the butchers would raise the price of their meat. At least,
that's what I fancy they imply when they talk of an "artificial
currency" raising prices (_with some vagueness_), or is it "artificial
prices" creating an increased currency. I couldn't _quite_ follow them
in this. But I am sure, whichever of the two views was expressed by M.
EMILE DE LAVELEYE, that one had, no doubt, a great deal of sound
argument to back it.

_Third Aspiring Political Economist._ I think you miss the point. Take
an illustration. Say you arrive at a cannibal island with ten thousand
complete sets of evening dress clothes, and that another ship, just
before the arrival of yours, has taken the last ten-pound-note off the
island, how, supposing there was to be a native rush to obtain one of
your suits, would the absence of any money to pay for them affect their
market value? I mayn't have got it quite correctly, but this, or
something like it, is one of the cases that GIFFEN brings forward to
prove his point. The matter, however, appears to me to be a little
complicated.

_Second Aspiring Political Economist._ Not in the least. It proves the
humbug of the Bimetallic position up to the hilt. Of course, you must
assume, that the cannibals desire to dress in evening clothes. I confess
that has to be considered, and then the question lies in a nutshell.
There can't be two opinions about it.

_First Aspiring Political Economist._ Well, to me, though, of course, I
am willing to admit there _may_ be something in it, I can't say that the
matter is, at first sight, convincingly clear. (_Candidly._) My chief
difficulty is, I confess, to arrive at any definite conclusion with
myself, as to what "Bimetallism" really means, and what it does not; and
I own I feel still vague as to the two questions of the influence of the
quantity of money on prices, or the price of a commodity on the value of
money respectively, and, though I carefully read all that appears in the
daily papers on the subject, I am compelled to own that I do not seem to
be nearer a solution of the perplexing difficulty. However, it is, no
doubt, a highly absorbing, if not a very useful, subject for
investigation.

[_Left investigating it as Curtain falls._

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[Illustration]

MR. PUNCH'S M