lers essayed, according to custom, to apply this
fraud to us, but they were disconcerted. The weight shown by their
scales was perfectly correct, and the price they offered us was rather
above the ordinary course of exchange, and the bargain between us was so
far concluded. The chief clerk took the souan-pan, the calculation table
used by the Chinese, and after calculating with an appearance of intense
nicety, announced the result of his operation. "This is an
exchange-office," said we; "you are the buyers, we the sellers; you have
made your calculation, we will make ours: give us a pencil and a piece of
paper."--"Nothing can be more just; you have enunciated a fundamental law
of commerce," and so saying, they handed us a writing-case. We took the
pencil, and a very short calculation exhibited a difference in our favour
of a thousand sapeks. "Superintendent of the bank," said we, "your
souan-pan is in error by a thousand sapeks."--"Impossible! Do you think
that all of a sudden I've forgotten my souan-pan? Let me go over it
again;" and he proceeded with an air of great anxiety to appear correct,
to set his calculating machine once more in operation, the other
customers by our side looking on with great amazement at all this. When
he had done: "Yes," said he, "I knew I was right; see, brother;" and he
passed the machine to a colleague behind the counter, who went over his
calculation; the result of their operations was exactly the same to a
fraction. "You see," said the principal, "there is no error. How is it
that our calculation does not agree with that which you have written down
there?"--"It is unimportant to inquire why your calculation does not
agree with ours; this is certain, that your calculation is wrong and ours
right. You see these little characters that we have traced on this
paper; they are a very different thing from your souan-pan; it is
impossible for them to be wrong. Were all the calculators in the world
to work the whole of their lives upon this operation, they could arrive
at no other result than this; that your statement is wrong by a thousand
sapeks."

The money-changers were extremely embarrassed, and began to turn very
red, when a bystander, who perceived that the affair was assuming an
awkward aspect, presented himself as umpire. "I'll reckon it up for
you," said he, and taking the souan-pan, his calculation agreed with
ours. The superintendent of the bank hereupon made us a profound