THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART
Page: 27

"Ah! naturally; yes. I see that Monsieur understands business."

"Yes," said the madman. "I established the Territorial Bank in the Rue
des Fosses-Montmartre at Paris in 1798."

"For," resumed Gaudissart, going back to his premium, "in order to
meet the payments on the intellectual capital which each man
recognizes and esteems in himself, it is of course necessary that each
should pay a certain premium, three per cent; an annual due of three
per cent. Thus, by the payment of this trifling sum, a mere nothing,
you protect your family from disastrous results at your death--"

"But I live," said the fool.

"Ah! yes; you mean if you should live long? That is the usual
objection,--a vulgar prejudice. I fully agree that if we had not
foreseen and demolished it we might feel we were unworthy of being--
what? What are we, after all? Book-keepers in the great Bureau of
Intellect. Monsieur, I don't apply these remarks to you, but I meet on
all sides men who make it a business to teach new ideas and disclose
chains of reasoning to people who turn pale at the first word. On my
word of honor, it is pitiable! But that's the way of the world, and I
don't pretend to reform it. Your objection, Monsieur, is really sheer
nonsense."

"Why?" asked the lunatic.

"Why?--this is why: because, if you live and possess the qualities
which are estimated in your policy against the chances of death,--now,
attend to this--"

"I am attending."

"Well, then, you have succeeded in life; and you have succeeded
because of the said insurance. You doubled your chances of success by
getting rid of the anxieties you were dragging about with you in the
shape of wife and children who might otherwise be left destitute at
your death. If you attain this certainty, you have touched the value
of your intellectual capital, on which the cost of insurance is but a
trifle,--a mere trifle, a bagatelle."

"That's a fine idea!"

"Ah! is it not, Monsieur?" cried Gaudissart. "I call this enterprise
the exchequer of beneficence; a mutual insurance against poverty; or,
if you like it better, the discounting, the cashing, of talent. For