"Yes."

"And what do we owe, adding it all together?"

"Forty billion dollars," said Toomuch.

"Isn't that wonderful!" exclaimed Abdul, with delight
radiating over his countenance. "Who would have thought
that before the war! Forty billion dollars! Aren't we
the financiers! Aren't we the bulwark of monetary power!
Can you touch that in Canada?"

"No," I said, "we can't. We don't owe two billion yet."

"Oh, never mind, never mind," said the little man in a
consoling tone. "You are only a young country yet. You'll
do better later on. And in any case I am sure you are
just as proud of your one billion as we are of our forty."

"Oh, yes," I said, "we certainly are."

"Come, come, that's something anyway. You're on the right
track, and you must not be discouraged if you're not up
to the Turkish standard yet. You must remember, as I told
you before, that Turkey leads the world in all ideas of
government and finance. Take the present situation. Here
we are, bankrupt--pass me the champagne, Toomuch, and
sit down with us--the very first nation of the lot. It's
a great feather in the cap of our financiers. It gives
us a splendid start for the new era of reconstruction