The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: has for all practical purposes discounted a bill. And although the
contrary may be the case, if you fail to receive a thousand francs, it
seems to be very much the same thing as if you had paid them away.
Everybody who has discounted a bill knows that he has to pay more than
the six per cent fixed by law; for a small percentage appears under
the humble title of "charges," representing a premium on the financial
genius and skill with which the capitalist puts his money out to
interest. The more money he makes out of you, the more he asks.
Wherefore it would be undoubtedly cheaper to discount a bill with a
fool, if fools there be in the profession of bill-discounting.
The law requires the banker to obtain a stock-broker's certificate for
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