I have flour until I am sick, and sugar and molasses without
stint, yet is the heart of Moosu sore and his bed empty.'
"'Peace!' I answered, 'thou art weak of understanding and a fool.
Walk softly and wait, and we will grasp it all. But grasp now, and
we grasp little, and in the end it will be nothing. Thou art a
child in the way of the white man's wisdom. Hold thy tongue and
watch, and I will show you the way my brothers do overseas, and, so
doing, gather to themselves the riches of the earth. It is what is
called "business," and what dost thou know about business?'
"But the next day he came in breathless. 'O master, a strange
thing happeneth in the igloo of Neewak, the shaman; wherefore we
are lost, and we have neither worn the warm furs nor tasted the
good tobacco, what of your madness for the molasses and flour. Go
thou and witness whilst I watch by the brew.'
"So I went to the igloo of Neewak. And behold, he had made his own
still, fashioned cunningly after mine. And as he beheld me he
could ill conceal his triumph. For he was a man of parts, and his
sleep with the gods when in my igloo had not been sound.
"But I was not disturbed, for I knew what I knew, and when I
returned to my own igloo, I descanted to Moosu, and said: 'Happily
the property right obtains amongst this people, who otherwise have
been blessed with but few of the institutions of men.
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