O. Henry

                  Supply and Demand


   Finch keeps a hats-cleaned-by-electricity-while-you-wait 
establishment, nine feet by twelve, in Third Avenue. Once a customer, 
you are always his. I do not know his secret process, but every four 
days your hat needs to be cleaned again.
   Finch is a leathern, sallow, slow-footed man, between twenty and 
forty. You would say he had been brought up a bushelman in Essex 
Street. When business is slack he likes to talk, so I had my hat 
cleaned even oftener than it deserved, hoping Finch might let me into 
some of the secrets of the sweatshops.
   One afternoon I dropped in and found Finch alone. He began to 
anoint my headpiece de Panama with his mysterious fluid that attracted 
dust and dirt like a magnet.
   "They say the Indians wear 'em under water," said I, for a leader.
   "Don't you believe it," said Finch. "No Indian or white man could 
stay under water that long. Say, do you pay much attention to 
politics? I see in the paper something about a law they've passed 
called `the law of supply and demand."'
   I explained to him as well as I could that the reference was to a 
politico-economical law, and not to a legal statute.
   "I didn't know," said Finch. "I heard a good deal about it a year 
or so ago, but in a one-sided way."
   "Yes," said I, "political orators use it a great deal. In fact, 
they never give it a rest. I suppose you heard some of those cart-tail 
fellows spouting on the subject over here on the east side."
   "I heard it from a king," said Finch-"the white king of a tribe of 
Indians in South America."
   I was interested but not surprised. The big city is like a mother's 
knee to many who have strayed far and found the roads rough beneath 
their uncertain feet. At dusk they come home and sit upon the door-
step. I know a piano player in a cheap café who has shot lions in 
Africa, a bellboy who fought in the British army against the Zulus, an 
express-driver whose left arm had been cracked like a lobster's claw 
for a stew-pot of Patagonian cannibals when the boat of his rescuers 
hove in sight. So a hat-cleaner who had been a friend of a king did 
not oppress me.
   "A new band?" asked Finch, with his dry, barren smile.
   "Yes," said I, "and half an inch wider." I had had a new band five 
days before.
   "I meets a man one night," said Finch, beginning his story-"a man 
brown as snuff, with money in every pocket, eating schweinerknuckel in 
Schlagel's. That was two years ago, when I was a hose-cart driver for 
No. 98. His discourse runs to the subject of gold. He says that 
certain mountains in a country down South that he calls Gaudymala is 
full of it. He says the Indians wash it out of the streams in plural 
quantities.
   "`Oh, Geronimo!' says I. `Indians! There's no Indians in the 
South,' I tell him, `except Elks, Maccabees, and the buyers for the 
fall dry-goods trade. The Indians are all on the reservations,' says I.
   "`I'm telling you this with reservations,' says he. `They ain't 
Buffalo Bill Indians; they're squattier and more pedigreed. They call 
'em Inkers and Aspics, and they was old inhabitants when Mazuma was 
King of Mexico. They was the gold out of the mountain streams,' says 
the brown man, `and fill quills with it; and then they empty 'em into 
red jars till they are full; and then they pack it in buckskin sacks 
of one arroba each-an arroba is twenty-five pounds-and store it in a 
stone house, with an engraving of a idol with marceled hair, playing a 
flute, over the door.'
   "`How do they work off this unearth increment?' I asks.
   "`They don't,' says the man. `It's a case of "Ill fares the land 
with the great deal of velocity where wealth accumulates and there 
ain't any reciprocity."'
   "After this man and me got through our conversation, which left him 
dry of information, I shook hands with him and told him I was sorry I 
couldn't believe him. And a month afterward I landed on the coast of 
this Gaudymala with $1,300 that I had been saving up for five years. I 
thought I knew what Indians liked, and I fixed myself accordingly. I 
loaded down four pack-mules with red woolen blankets, wrought-iron 
pails, jeweled side combs for the ladies, glass necklaces, and safety-
razors. I hired a black mozo, who was supposed to be a mule-driver and 
an interpreter too. It turned out that he could interpret mules all 
right, but he drove the English language much too hard. His name 
sounded like a Yale key when you push it in wrong side up, but I 
called him McClintock, which was close to the noise.
   "Well, this gold village was forty miles up in the mountains, and 
it took us nine days to find it. But one afternoon McClintock led the 
other mules and myself over a rawhide bridge stretched across a 
precipice five thousand feet deep, it seemed to me. The hoofs of the 
beasts drummed on it just like before George M. Cohan makes his first 
entrance on the stage.
   "This village was built of mud and stone, and had no streets. Some 
few yellow-and-brown persons popped their heads out-of-doors, looking 
about like Welsh rabbits with Worcester sauce on 'em. Out of the 
biggest house, that had a kind of a porch around it, steps a big white 
man, red as a beet in color, dressed in fine tanned deerskin clothes, 
with a gold chain around his neck, smoking a cigar. I've seen United 
States Senators of his style of features and build, also head-waiters 
and cops.
   "He walks up and takes a look at us, while McClintock disembarks 
and begins to interpret to the lead mule while he smokes a cigarette.
   "`Hello, Buttinsky,' says the fine man to me. `How did you get in 
the game? I didn't see you buy any chips. Who gave you the keys of the 
city?'
   "`I'm a poor traveler', says I. `Especially mule-back. You'll 
excuse me. Do you run a hack line or only a bluff?'
   "`Segregate yourself from your pseudo-equine quadruped', says he, 
`and come inside.'
   "He raises a finger, and a villager runs up.
   "`This man will take care of your outfit,' says he, `and I'll take 
care of you.'
   "He leads me into the biggest house, and sets the chairs and a kind 
of a drink the color of milk. It was the finest room I ever saw. The 
stone walls was hung all over with silk shawls, and there was red and 
yellow rugs on the floor, and jars of red pottery and Angora goat 
skins, and enough bamboo furniture to misfurnish half a dozen seaside 
cottages.
   "`In the first place,' says the man, `you want to know who I am. 
I'm sole lessee and proprietor of this tribe of Indians. They call me 
the Grand Yacuma, which is to say King or Main Finger of the bunch. 
I've got more power here than a chargé d'affaires, a charge of 
dynamite, and a charge account at Tiffany's combined. In fact, I'm the 
Big Stick, with as many extra knots on it as there is on the record 
run of the Lusitania. Oh, I read the papers now and then,' says 
he. `Now, let's hear your entitlements,' he goes on, `and the meeting 
will be open.'
   "`Well,' says I, `I am known as one W. D. Finch. Occupation, 
capitalist. Address, 541 East Thirty-second-'
   "`New York,' chips in the Noble Grand. `I know', says he, grinning. 
`It ain't the first time you've seen it go down on the blotter. I can 
tell by the way you hand it out. Well, explain, "capitalist."'
   "I tells this boss plain what I come for and how I come to came.
   "`Gold-dust?' says he, looking as puzzled as a baby that's got a 
feather stuck on its molasses finger. `That's funny. This ain't a 
gold-mining country. And you invested all your capital on a stranger's 
story? Well, well! These Indians of mine-they are the last of the 
tribe of Peches-are simple as children. They know nothing of the 
purchasing power of gold. I'm afraid you've been imposed on,' says he.
   "`Maybe so,' says I, `but it sounded pretty straight to me.'
   "`W. D.,' says the King, all of a sudden, `I'll give you a square 
deal. It ain't often I get to talk to a white man, and I'll give you a 
show for your money. It may be these constituents of mine have a few 
grains of gold-dust hid away in their clothes. To-morrow you may get 
out these goods you've brought up and see if you can make any sales. 
Now, I'm going to introduce myself unofficially. My name is Shane-
Patrick Shane. I own this tribe of Peche Indians by right of conquest-
single handed and unafraid. I drifted up here four years ago, and won 
'em by my size and complexion and nerve. I learned their language in 
six weeks-it's easy: you simply emit a string of consonants as long as 
your breath holds out and then point at what you're asking for.
   "`I conquered 'em, spectacularly,' goes on King Shane, `and then I 
went at 'em with economical politics, law, sleight-of-hand, and a kind 
of, New England ethics and parsimony. Every Sunday, or as near as I 
can guess at it, I preach to 'em in the council-house (I'm the 
council) on the law of supply and demand. I praise supply and knock 
demand. I use the same text every time. You wouldn't think, W. D.,' 
says Shane, `that I had poetry in me, would you?'
   "`Well,' says I, `I wouldn't know whether to call it poetry or 
not.'
   "`Tennyson,' says Shane, `furnishes the poetic gospel I preach. 
I always considered him the boss poet. Here's the way the text goes:

   "For, not to admire, if a man could learn it, were more
   Than to walk all day like a Sultan of old in a garden of spice."

   "`You see, I teach 'em to cut out demand-that supply is the main 
thing. I teach 'em not to desire anything beyond their simplest needs. 
A little mutton, a little cocoa, and a little fruit brought up from 
the coast-that's all they want to make 'em happy. I've got 'em well 
trained. They make their own clothes and hats out of a vegetable fiber 
and straw, and they're a contented lot. It's a great thing,' winds up 
Shane, `to have made a people happy by the inculvitation of such 
simple institutions.'
   "Well, the next day, with the King's permission, I has the 
McClintock open up a couple of sacks of my goods in the little plaza 
of the village. The Indians swarmed around by the hundred and looked 
the bargain-counter over. I shook red blankets at 'em, flashed finger-
rings and earbobs, tried pearl necklaces and side-combs on the women, 
and a line of red hosiery on the men. 'Twas no use. They looked on 
like hungry graven images, but I never made a sale. I asked McClintock 
what was the trouble. Mac yawned three or four times, rolled a 
cigarette, made one or two confidential side remarks to a mule, and 
then condescended to inform me that the people had no money.
   "Just then up strolls King Patrick, big and red and royal as usual, 
with the gold chain over his chest and his cigar in front of him.
   "`How's business, W. D.?' he asks.
   "`Fine,' says I. `It's a bargain-day rush. I've got one more line 
of goods to offer before I shut up shop. I'll try'em with safety-
razors. I've got two gross that I bought at a fire sale.'
   "Shane laughs till some kind of mameluke or private secretary he 
carries with him has to hold him up.
   "`O my sainted Aunt Jerusha!' says he, `ain't you one of the Babes 
in the Woods, W. D.? Don't you know that no Indians ever shave? They 
pull out their whiskers instead.'
   "`Well,' says I, `that's just what these razors would do for 'em-
they wouldn't have any kick coming if they used 'em once.'
   "Shane went away, and I could hear him laughing a block, if there 
had been any block.
   "`Tell 'em, says I to McClintock, `it ain't money I want-tell 'em 
I'll take gold-dust. Tell 'em I'll allow 'em sixteen dollars an ounce 
for it in trade. That's what I'm out for-the dust.'
   "Mac interprets, and you'd have thought a squadron of cops had 
charged the crowd to disperse it. Every uncle's nephew and aunt's 
niece of 'em faded away inside of two minutes.
   "At the royal palace that night me and the King talked it over.
   "`They've got the dust hid out somewhere,' says I, `or they 
wouldn't have been so sensitive about it.'
   "`They haven't,' says Shane. `What's this gag you've got about 
gold? You been reading Edward Allen Poe? They ain't got any gold.'
   "`They put it in quills,' says I, `and then they empty it in jars, 
and then into sacks of twenty-five pounds each. I got it straight.'
   "`W. D.,' says Shane, laughing and chewing his cigar, `I don't 
often see a white man, and I feel like putting you on. I don't think 
you'll get away from here alive, anyhow, so I'm going to tell you. 
Come over here.'
   "He draws aside a silk fiber curtain in a corner of the room and 
shows me a pile of buckskin sacks.
   "`Forty of 'em,' says Shane. `One arroba in each one. In round 
numbers, $220,000 worth of gold-dust you see there. It's all mine. It 
belongs to the Grand Yacuma. They bring it all to me. Two hundred and 
twenty thousand dollars-think of that, you glass-bead peddler,' says 
Shane-`and all mine.'
   "`Little good it does you,' says I, contemptuously and hatefully. 
`And so you are the government depository of this gang of moneyless 
money-makers? Don't you pay enough interest on it to enable one of 
your depositors to buy an Augusta (Maine) Pullman carbon diamond worth 
$220 for $4.85?'
   "`Listen,' says Patrick Shane, with the sweat coming out on his 
brow. `I'm confident with you, as you have, somehow, enlisted my 
regards. Did you ever,' he says, `feel the avoirdupois power of gold-
not the troy weight of it, but the sixteen-ounces-to-the-pound force 
of it?'
   "`Never,' says I. `I never take in any bad money.'
   "Shane drops down on the floor and throws his arms over the sacks 
of gold-dust.
   "`I love it,' says he. `I want to feel the touch of it day and 
night. It's my pleasure in life. I come in this room, and I'm a king 
and a rich man. I'll be a millionaire in another year. The pile's 
getting bigger every month. I've got the whole tribe washing out the 
sands in the creeks. I'm the happiest man in the world. W. D. I just 
want to be near this gold, and know it's mine and it's increasing 
every day. Now, you know,' says he, `why my Indians wouldn't buy your 
goods. They can't. They bring all the dust to me. I'm their king. I've 
taught 'em not to desire or admire. You might as well shut up shop.'
   "`I'll tell you what you are,' says I. `You're a plain, 
contemptible miser. You preach supply and you forget demand. Now, 
supply,' I goes on, `is never anything but supply. On the contrary,' 
says I, `demand is a much broader sylogism and assertion. Demand 
includes the rights of our women and children, and charity and 
friendship, and even a little begging on the street corners. They' ve 
both got to harmonize equally. And I've got a few things up my 
commercial sleeve yet,' says I, `that may jostle your preconceived 
ideas of politics and economy.'
   "The next morning I had McClintock bring up another mule-load of 
goods to the plaza and open it up. The people gathered around the same 
as before.
   "I got out the finest line of necklaces, bracelets, hair-combs, and 
earrings that I carried, and had the women put 'em on. And then I 
played trumps.
   "Out of my last pack I opened up a half gross of hand-mirrors, with 
solid tinfoil backs, and passed 'em around among the ladies. That was 
the first introduction of looking-glasses among the Peche Indians.
   "Shane walks by with his big laugh.
   "`Business looking up any?' he asks.
   "`It's looking at itself right now,' says I.
   "By-and-by a kind of a murmur goes through the crowd. The women had 
looked into the magic crystal and seen that they were beautiful, and 
were confiding the secret to the men. The men seemed to be urging the 
lack of money and the hard times just before the election, but their 
excuses didn't go.
   "Then was my time.
   "I called McClintock away from an animated conversation with his 
mules and told him to do some interpreting.
   "`Tell 'em, says I, `that gold-dust will buy for them these 
befitting ornaments for kings and queens of the earth. Tell 'em the 
yellow sand they wash out of the waters for the High Sanctified 
Yacomay and Chop Suey of the tribe will buy the precious jewels and 
charms that will make them beautiful and preserve and pickle them from 
evil spirits. Tell 'em the Pittsburgh banks are paying four per cent. 
interest on deposits by mail, while this get-rich-frequently custodian 
of the public funds ain't even paying attention. Keep telling 'em, 
Mac,' says I, `to let the gold-dust family do their work. Talk to 'em 
like a born anti-Bryanite,' says I. `Remind 'em that Tom Watson's gone 
back to Georgia,' says I.
   "McClintock waves his hand affectionately at one of his mules, and 
then hurls a few stickfuls of minion type at the mob of shoppers.
   "A gutta-percha Indian man, with a lady hanging on his arm, with 
three strings of my fish-scale jewelry and imitation marble beads 
around her neck, stands up on a block of stone and makes a talk that 
sounds like a man shaking dice in a box to fill aces and sixes.
   "`He says,' says Mc Clintock, `that the people not know that gold-
dust will buy their things. The women very mad. The Grand Yacuma tell 
them it no good but for keep to make bad spirits keep away.'
   "`You can't keep bad spirits away from money,' says I.
   "`They say," goes on McClintock, `the Yacuma fool them. They raise 
plenty row.'
   "`Going! Going!' says I. `Gold-dust or cash takes the entire stock. 
The dust weighed before you, and taken at sixteen dollars the ounce -
the highest price on the Gaudymala coast.'
   "Then the crowd disperses all of a sudden, and I don't know what's 
up. Mac and me packs away the hand-mirrors and jewelry they had handed 
back to us, and we had the mules back to the corral they had set apart 
for our garage.
   "While we was there we hear great noises of shouting, and down 
across the plaza runs Patrick Shane, hotfoot, with his clothes ripped 
half off, and scratches on his face like a cat had fought him hard for 
every one of its lives.
   "`They're looting the treasury, W. D.,' he sings out. `They're 
going to kill me and you, too. Unlimber a couple of mules at once. 
We'll have to make a get-away in a couple of minutes.'
   "`They've found out,' says I, `the truth about the law of supply 
and demand.'
   "`It's the women, mostly,' says the King. `And they used to admire 
me so!'
   "`They hadn't seen looking-glasses then,' says I.
   "`They've got knives and hatchets,' says Shane; `hurry!'
   "`Take that roan mule,' says I. `You and your law of supply! I'll 
ride the dun, for he's two knots per hour the faster. The roan has a 
stiff knee, but he may make it,' says I. `If you'd included 
reciprocity in your political platform I might have given you the 
dun,' says I.
   "Shane and McClintock and me mounted our mules and rode across the 
rawhide bridge just as the Peches reached the other side and began 
firing stones and long knives at us. We cut the thongs that held up 
our end of the bridge and headed for the coast."
   A tall, bulky policeman came into Finch's shop at that moment and 
leaned an elbow on the showcase. Finch nodded at him friendly.
   "I heard down at Casey's", said the cop, in rumbling, husky tones, 
"that there was going to be a picnic of the Hat-Cleaners' Union over 
at Bergen Beach, Sunday. Is that right?"
   "Sure," said Finch. "There'll be a dandy time."
   "Gimme five tickets," said the cop, throwing a five-dollar bill on 
the showcase.
   "Why," said Finch, "ain't you going it a little too-"
   "Go to h-," said the cop. "You got 'em to sell, ain't you? 
Somebody's got to buy 'em. Wish I could go along."
   I was glad to see Finch so well thought of in his neighborhood.
   And then in came a wee girl of seven, with dirty face and pure blue 
eyes and smutched and insufficient dress.
   "Mamma says," she recited shrilly, "that you must give me eighty 
cents for the grocer and nineteen for the milkman and five cents for 
me to buy hokey-pokey with-but she didn't say that," the elf 
concluded, with a hopeful but honest grin.
   Finch shelled out the money, counting it twice, but I noticed that 
the total sum that the small girl received was one dollar and four 
cents.
   "That's the right kind of a law," remarked Finch, as he carefully 
broke some of the stitches of my hatband so that it would assuredly 
come off within a few days-"the law of supply and demand. But they've 
both got to work together. I'll bet," he went on, with his dry smile, 
"she'll get jelly beans with that nickel-she likes 'em. What's supply 
if there's no demand for it?"
   "What ever became of the King?" I asked, curiously.
   "Oh, I might have told you," said Finch. "That was Shane came in 
and bought the tickets. He came back with me, and he's on the force 
now."