It seemed that Jack, here, had blundered into the fourth or fifth act of a drama – neither a comedy nor a tragedy, but a history – that had begun when Monsieur Esphahnian père had sailed the first ship of coffee, ever, into Marseille in 1644. It was worth a lot of money. The larger Esphahnian family, which was headquartered in Persia, had plowed a lot of their India trading profits into buying this boat-load of beans in Mocha and getting it up the Red Sea and the Nile to Alexandria and thence to France. Anyway – Pa Esphahnian sold the beans, realized a handsome profit, but realized it in reals – Spanish money – pieces of eight. Why? Because there was an extreme currency shortage in France and he couldn't have taken payment in French money if he'd wanted to – there was none. And why was that? Because (and here it was necessary to imagine an Armenian pounding himself on the head with both hands – imbécile! ) the Spanish mines in Mexico were producing ludicrous amounts of silver –