I relieve you of half of it, and make the other half take its proper destination.
-- You are an unequaled financier.

There is but one difficulty.

What tax, if you please, do I pay, which does not go to the Treasury?
-- How much does this suit of clothes cost you?
-- A hundred francs.
-- How much would it have cost you if you had gotten the cloth from Belgium?
-- Eighty francs.
-- Then why did you not get it there?
-- Because it is prohibited.
-- Why?
-- So that the suit may cost me one hundred francs instead of eighty.
-- This denial, then, costs you twenty francs?
-- Undoubtedly.
-- And where do these twenty francs go?
-- Where do they go?
To the manufacturer of the cloth.
-- Well, give me ten francs for the Treasury, and I will remove the restriction, and you will gain ten francs.
-- Oh, I begin to see.

The treasury account shows that it loses five francs on postage and five on salt, and gains ten on cloth.

That is even.
-- Your account is--you gain five francs on salt, five on postage, and ten on cloth.
-- Total, twenty francs.