"It is of Jamaica for the most part; but there's some of Cuba. It's all of a good age, a rich brown color, excellent strong body, and has been well kept. It is mostly in barrels--barrels once used for sherry, which gives that flavor so much desired; but there is a quantity in puncheons of full ninety gallons, still in the brig, but ready for delivery in a reasonable time." To Anthony's right was a hook-nosed man who smoked a pipe in nervous puffs; money and exchange seemed to trouble him enormously, and he talked with a stolid, comfortable-looking man across the table from him, in high exasperation. "I wouldn't give that for all the beggarly pistareens you could cram into a sack," stated the hook-nosed man, as he snapped his fingers. "Such stuff is not money, and should not be recognized as such. And then your Netherlands guilders, your mark bancos, your florins, francs, livres, and shillings! What has such rattling metal to do with the exchanges of civilized peoples? What right, even, have their names to assume places in the conversations of men of commercial substance?" "Their place," said the comfortable man, "is small but respectable. And when gathered together they make great weight in the world. Your florin, now, is a realer thing to many a man than your pistole, because it is nearer to his reach. Livres, pistareens, francs, and shillings turn the balance of the world in a time of stress, sir; and they make its prosperity in time of peace." But the hook-nosed man had an eager and indignant soul. "I contend," said he, "that the very weight of small coin, of which you seem so proud, is one of the things that hang to the rim of the world and keep it in check. Human-kind is laboring to-day under a burden of fractional silver that is as overpowering as the copper currency of the past. I contend that heavy money, like heavy bread, is killing to the imagination; and without imagination there is no progress. What inspiration is there in a cold, white coin stamped with the smug features of some fat-natured prince? Is it a thing to lift a man out of the ruck? It is not. Never has the possession of a piece of coined silver caused a man to raise his head and think a thought above his fellows; the sight of such a coin has never made a slave to rebel against his master; a till full of them has yet to make a merchant feel in a fair way of business." "Enough of them can always be exchanged for others of a higher value," argued the comfortable man. This fact seemed to inspire the other to increased resentment.