etermined to
insure the vessel and drive a good bargain. At this, dreading the
consequences, I hastened to tell him that for all I knew there might not
be a word of truth in the oracle's reply, and that I should die of grief
if I were the involuntary cause of his losing an enormous sum of money
through relying on an oracle, the hidden sense of which might be
completely opposed to the literal translation.

"Have you ever been deceived by it?"

"Often."

Seeing my distress, Esther begged her father to take no further steps in
the matter. For some moments nobody spoke.

M. d'O---- looked thoughtful and full of the project which his fancy had
painted in such gay colours. He said a good deal about it, dwelling on
the mystic virtues of numbers, and told his daughter to read out all the
questions she had addressed to the oracle with the answers she had
received. There were six or seven of them, all briefly worded, some
direct and some equivocal. Esther, who had constructed the pyramids, had
shone, with my potent assistance, in extracting the answers, which I had
really invented, and her father, in the joy of his heart, seeing her so
clever, imagined that she would become an adept in the science by the
force of intelligence. The lovely Esther, who was much taken with the
trifle; was quite ready to be of the same opinion.

After passing several hours in the discussion of the answers, which my
host thought divine, we had supper, and at parting M. d'O---- said that as
Sunday was a day for pleasure and not business he hoped I would honour
them by passing the day at their pretty house on the Amstel, and they
were delighted at my accepting their invitation.

I could not help pondering over the mysteries of the commercial mind,
which narrows itself down to considerations of profit and loss. M.
d'O---- was decidedly an honest man; but although he was rich, he was by
no means devoid of the greed incident to his profession. I asked myself
the question, how a man, who would consider it dishonourable to steal a
ducat, or to pick one up in the street and keep it, knowing to whom it
belonged, could reconcile it with his conscience to make an enormous
profit by insuring a vessel of the safety of which he was perfectly
certain, as he believed the oracle infallible. Such a transaction was
certainly fraudulent, as it is dishonest to play when one is certain of
winning.

As I was going home I passed a tea-garden, and seeing a good many pe