PHANTOM GOLD.
LOSS of a purse is a sheer waste of money. At least, we never yet met any one so amiable as to hope that the thief had enjoyed his find, or so optimistic as to imagine that he had made a good use of it. For the time being chagrin takes possession of the loser's imagination and transforms his real annoyance into a fancied grief. The present writer had several pounds stolen from him the other day, and
before many hours were past he thought he had lost Fortu- natus's purse. As the money dropped out of the world of respectable commerce into the unknown through the fingers of the thief it multiplied a hundredfold in purchasing-power. At last the loser had bought with it—in his mind's eye—almost everything that ho had wanted for years past ; in fact, he could only liken the list of his might-have-been acquisitions to the things that Lear's Jumblies bought when
"They sailed to the Western Sea, they did, To a land all covered with trees, And they bought an owl, and a useful cart, Aud a pound of rice, and a cranberry tart, And a hive of silvery bees; And they bought a pig, and some green jackdaws, And a lovely monkey with lollipop paws, And forty bottles of Ring Bo Roe, And no end of Stilton cheese."
It is not only beautiful things such as these which can be bought with the ghosts of lost sovereigns ; it is far better things also—chances, and changes, and posts, and positions, and houses like the one that Jack built, and goodness knows what else. " There was that long journey, for instance," thinks the victim of the pickpocket to himself. " I thought
it too far to go for a week's visit ; but had I had that five pounds I should have gone, and who knows what might not have come of it P I might have met people of power and influence who would have appreciated me at my true value. It might have all ended in Park Lane, in the Ministry, or on the Woolsack ; there is no telling." Should a man be of a frugal disposition, thoughts may of course run in other directions. By keeping his loss well in mind, harping upon it, blaming himself for it, and boring his neighbours with it, it will assume such proportions that it may take him all his spare time and resolution for a long while to replace it. In fact, we should think that for certain dispositions a loss sufficiently serious, according to what a man has, to cause him some inconvenience may lay a firm foundation for a fortune. There is no saying what a man cannot save, or, if he is a bad hand at economy, make his wife save, in order to replace a loss—not one-tenth of which was ever real. But the money that replaces it is real. He has trafficked with his lost coins to some purpose.
It is only when we are quite young that we require tangible toys, but most imaginative people want toys of some sort all their lives. Charles Lamb's dream children made charming playthings. The dolls of grown-up genius are very lovely. Phantom gold, however, is a more popular toy, and makes a more general appeal. It is a favourite with those who have lots of real children, and with those who are thankful they have none. Most people indulge in a few minutes' make-believe from time to time. They consider quite seriously where they would live if money were no object, where they would go, what they
would get, and what they would give. The odd thing is that we cannot play—to our satisfaction—with phantom toys just when we will. The pleasures, even the very little pleasures, of imagination are not to be had for the asking. Toys are the result of gift or purchase as a rule, even the toys of fancy. When money is multiplied by loss, and we play with the phantom to console ourselves, we may surely say that we paid for our pleasure; but now and then we get it more pleasantly. Any unexpected legacy or windfall not large enough to justify us in changing, even in the slightest degree, our way of life may supply us with a large phantom banking account. The longer we can keep from spending the actual sum we have received the further will our phantom fortune go. One day we settle upon a few days' holiday; the next we have a new carpet in the drawing-room; on a third we do up the oar. Should the legacy be of a recurrent nature, a small annuity for instance, we shall be very apt to speculate with our phantom gold, which, by the by, lends itself very well to speculation, especially if it cornea to us packed in dead men's shoes. But suppose we have actually got the money, and that nobody's will intervenes between us and our little yearly present, we may still burn our fingers terribly at fancy's fire. Suppose it is coming in March. Not later than January we begin to count on it. The money which is coming will justify us, we say to ourselves, in such-and-such an expense—which expense we proceed to incur. In February we want something else. There is still the March money to be drawn upon, we say, not realizing that it is gone, and only phantom gold remains. When the money is actually in our hands we spend it on a third thing, and then the game palls; but we shall play it again next year. Fancy never deals in alternatives. It is only phantom gold which will buy the cake that can be eaten and had.
There is something about the sight of golden coins which excites the imagination. Was it for economic nations alone that the world settled upon gold as the universal token P What delight children take in counters made to represent sovereigns—small children who have certainly never possessed a real twenty shillings. They know the round yellow shams have no value, they do not think about spending them seriously, but they love to play with them nevertheless. There are analogous games which we all play with phantom
counters from time to time. The counters represent nothing that we have, or have lost, or even expect to have; they represent our friends' incomes. These tokens represent a very uncertain quantity. We are not a bit sure what our friends have to spend; we only know how, if we had what they have, we should spend it. The further we are from any accurate knowledge the better is the fun. "I should not wonder if So-and-so has so much a year," we say, and we proceed to rearrange his life on a different money basis. We take his son from Marlborough and send him to Eton; we sell his carriage horses and buy him a smart car; we dress his wife and daughters in a more suitable manner ; we take a flat in town for them and we sublet his shooting. We wonder whether it is ho or his wife who is the mean one, and we consider what he ought to give his daughter on her marriage.
We get a good deal of entertainment with the phantom counters which represent his fortune. We have a notion that this is a game played a great deal by servants. It is a mere notion, because no one knows the mind of a servant whore money is concerned; it is a sealed book. " They know nothing about money," we hear their employers say with a sigh. But that is a mistake. They have as a class extra- ordinary economic perspicacity. They save, they maintain their relations, they make a brave show in the matter of clothes, and they almost never come to the workhouse. On the other hand, they do appear in certain ways to be more ignorant of money than any other set of people. They have a strange love of extravagance in others, and, if one may interpret their thoughts by their actions, are always rearranging their employers' expenditure. Why in the world people with so much to spend should have so little to throw away they cannot see. It is very natural. We should all wonder at any care if we passed our days in the
house of a millionaire, and yet had our homes in plain rectories and professional men's houses. We should be very apt to play with their money—in imagination. And perhaps the habit is a safeguard against envy.
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