the unstable ships, and run
risks from shipwreck and pirates, and when, having asked them why they
have done this, they have answered, 'For gold,' I have found it hard to
believe them; and when they have told me how men have lied, and robbed,
and deceived; how they have murdered one another, and leagued together
to depose kings, to oppress provinces, and all for gold; then I have
said to myself, either my slaves have combined to make me believe that
which is not, or this gold must be very different from the yellow stuff
that this coin is made of, this coin which is of no use but to have a
hole pierced through it and hang to my girdle, that it may tinkle when I
walk."

"Notwithstanding," said the old man, "nothing can be done without gold;
for look you, prince, it is better than bread, and fruit, and music, for
it can buy them all, since men love it, and have agreed to exchange it
for whatever they may need."

"How so?" asked the prince.

"If a man has many loaves he cannot eat them all," answered the old man;
"therefore he goes to his neighbor and says, 'I have bread and thou
hast a coin of gold--let us change'; so he receives the gold and goes to
another man, saying, 'Thou hast two houses and I have none; lend me one
of thy houses to live in, and I will give thee my gold'; thus again they
change, and he that has the gold says, 'I have food enough and goods
enough, but I want a wife, I will go to the merchant and get a marriage
gift for her father, and for it I will give him this gold.'"

"It is well," said the prince; "but in time of drought, if there is no
bread in a city, can they make it of gold?"

"Not so," answered the old man, "but they must send their gold to a city
where there is food, and bring that back instead of it."

"But if there was a famine all over the world," asked the prince, "what
would they do then?"

"Why then, and only then," said the old man, "they must starve, and the
gold would be nought, for it can only be changed for that which _is_; it
cannot make that which is not."

"And where do they get gold?" asked the prince; "is it the precious
fruit of some rare tree, or have they whereby they can draw it down from
the sky at sunset?"

"Some of it," said the old man, "they dig out of the ground."

Then he told the prince of ancient rivers running through terrible
deserts, whose sands glitter, with golden grains and are yellow in the
fierce heat of the sun, and of dreary mines where the I