In the
gun were two sizes--wee mustard-seed shot, and another sort that
were several times larger. They were money. The mustard-seed
shot represented milrays, the larger ones mills. So the gun was
a purse; and very handy, too; you could pay out money in the dark
with it, with accuracy; and you could carry it in your mouth; or
in your vest pocket, if you had one. I made them of several sizes
--one size so large that it would carry the equivalent of a dollar.
Using shot for money was a good thing for the government; the metal
cost nothing, and the money couldn't be counterfeited, for I was
the only person in the kingdom who knew how to manage a shot tower.
"Paying the shot" soon came to be a common phrase. Yes, and I knew
it would still be passing men's lips, away down in the nineteenth
century, yet none would suspect how and when it originated.
The king joined us, about this time, mightily refreshed by his nap,
and feeling good. Anything could make me nervous now, I was so
uneasy--for our lives were in danger; and so it worried me to
detect a complacent something in the king's eye which seemed to
indicate that he had been loading himself up for a performance
of some kind or other; confound it, why must he go and choose
such a time as this?
I was right. He began, straight off, in the most innocently
artful, and transparent, and lubberly way, to lead up to the
subject of agriculture.
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