In a certain town in the world were four Brahmans who lived as the best of friends. And being stricken with utter poverty, they took counsel together: “A curse, a curse on this business of being poor! For

The well-served master hates him still;

His loving kinsmen with a will

Abandon him; woes multiply,

While friends and even children fly;

His high-born wife grows cool: the flash

Of virtue dims; brave efforts crash —

For him who has no ready cash.

And again:

Charm, courage, eloquence, good looks,

And thorough mastery of books

(If money does not back the same)

Are useless in the social game.

“Better be dead than penniless. As the story goes:

A beggar to the graveyard hied

And there ‘.Friend corpse, arise,’ he cried;

‘One moment lift my heavy weight

Of poverty; for I of late

Grow weary, and desire instead

Your comfort: you are good and dead.’

The corpse was silent. He was sure

‘Twas better to be dead than poor.

“So let us at any cost’ strive to make money. For the saying goes:

Money gets you anything,

Gets it in a flash:

Therefore let the prudent get

Cash, cash, cash.

“Now this cash comes to men in six ways. They are: (1) begging for charity, (2) flunkeyism at a court, (3) farmwork, (4) the learned professions, (5) usury, (6) trade.

“However, among all these methods of making money, trade is the only one without a hitch in it. For

Kings’ favor is a thing unstable;

Crows peck at winnings charitable;

You make, in learning the professions,

Too many wearisome concessions

To teachers; farms are too much labor;

In usury you lend your neighbor

The cash which is your life, and therefore

You really live a poor man. Wherefore

I see in trade the only living

That can be truly pleasure-giving,

Hurrah for trade!

“Now profitable trade has seven branches. They are: (1) false weights and balances, (2) price-boosting, (3) keeping a pawnshop, (4) getting regular customers, (5) a stock company, (6) articles-de luxe such as perfumes, (7) foreign trade.

“Now the economists say:

False weights and boosting prices to

An overshameless sum

And constant cheating of one’s friends

Are fit for social scum.

And again:

Deposits in the house compel

The pawnshop man to pray;

If you will kill the owner, Lord,

I’ll give you what you say.

Likewise:

The holder of a stock reflects

With glee, though one of many:

The wide world’s wealth belongs to me;

No other gets a penny.

Furthermore:

Perfumery is first-class ware:

Why deal in gold and such?

Whate’er the cost, you sell it for

A thousand times as much.

“Foreign trade is the affair of the capitalist. As the book says:

Wild elephants are caught by tame:

So money-kings, devising

A trap for money, capture it

With far-flung advertising.

The brisk commercial traveler,

Who knows the selling game,

Invests his money, and returns

With twice or thrice the same.

And again:

The crow, or good-for-naught, or