"Well, my dear boy," said Heins, "that will do. We are not children who want to have every thing explained by a wise little man like you." "Those kings were not children that Master Peter was speaking of," observed Christian; "and yet they seemed to want to have it explained that they might as well part with their gold as with anything else, since the thing that signified most was whether they got anything better in exchange." "You have quite changed your opinion," said Gertrude. "An hour ago, you thought it a very sad thing to part with gold." "Yes; because I thought gold was somehow more valuable than anything else; that it had a value of its own. But, if there is any one country where gold is of little use, it seems as if it was much like other goods;--fit to be changed away when one has too much of it, and got back again when one wants it." "Then it is time," said Gertrude, "that merchants, and those who rule them, should leave off being very glad when money is imported rather than goods, and very sorry when it is exported." "They may feel sure," Heins observed, "that they will soon have an opportunity of getting more money, if they want it. No one thing is bought and sold so often as money; and they may be as confident that some will soon fall in their way as that there would always be blue cloth in the market, if every trader in the world bought and sold blue cloth." Christian saw yet another consequence from what Master Peter had told him. If gold was very cheap in Peru and very dear in Russia, and if furs and hemp were very cheap in Russia and very dear in Peru, it would do as much good to the one country as to the other to exchange them, while it could do nobody any harm. At this grand discovery the boy was so delighted that he ran the risk of bringing on his pain by the start which he made to put his face opposite to Master Peter's. It was very mortifying to hear once more Heins's compassionate laugh, while he asked whether everybody did not know this before. Did not his mother send abroad the butter which it cost very little to make at the farm, and cause her household to eat salt butter of foreign preparation? "I never could make that out; and Kaatje never could tell me," exclaimed Christian. "We none of us like the salt butter so well; and it costs more to buy than our own fresh butter to make; and yet we must all eat salt butter." "Because my mother can sell every kop of her butter abroad for more than she pays for the best salt butter that is brought in. You know there is no butter to equal the Dutch." "Nor anything else, by your own account, Mr. Heins," replied Master Peter, laughing. "There is nothing to be found abroad equal to what you have at home. A pretty honest boast this for a large importer! What say you to your corn?"