"And so you want to go into business, do you?" asked Mr. Motto, after he had given the old woman a "pinch" from the jar. "What all have you studied? Reading, writing, arithmetic, French? Eh? And what are your parents."
"They dealt in shoes--from Paris, M'neer. But I don't know French. Arithmetic--yes. Went through Strabbe."
"And you know arithmetic, do you? How much then is a Pietje and a half?"
Walter stammered that he didn't know. Does the reader know?
"But you must know that if you expect to calculate. And you don't know what a Pietje is? Do you know the difference between a sesthalf and a shilling? And between a dollar and a twenty-eight piece? Look----"
Mr. Motto pulled out the cash-drawer and seemed to be hunting for a dollar; but for some reason or other he decided to make out with a sesthalf. This he laid on the counter and asked Walter to imagine a shilling lying beside it. He then proceeded to test Walter's knowledge of business by asking him to point out the differences between the two coins. Mr. Motto claimed that in business one must know these details thoroughly.
And Mr. Motto was right about it. At that time there were more different kinds of money in the Netherlands than there are in Germany now. To be able to distinguish the various coins readily and make change accurately a regular course of study was necessary. Just as a law was about to be passed to confer the title, "Doctor of Numismatics," on examination, the secretary of the treasury discovered that all this trouble could be spared by simplifying the money. He became very unpopular after this.
In Walter's time, though, such a reform had not been thought of. The florin had twenty stivers; the regular Holland dollar had fifty stivers, the Zeeland dollar had forty-two. The dollar was worth a florin and a half, and the gold florin was called a "twenty-eight," because it contained twenty-eight stivers. The coins were well-worn and seldom exhibited any traces of inscriptions, milling, etc. Matters were further complicated by three-florin pieces and ducats of sixty-three stivers, not to mention any other coins.
For Walter the money question was a serious one.
"And you don't know French, either?" in a tone that was scarcely encouraging.