I thought I'd seen the limit of low finance when I'd
experienced the franc, lira, drachma, dinar, lev and piastre; but they
were all child's play to the rouble in 1918."
"I thought Russian money was all dud before that," I remarked.
"Not a bit of it," said Jones. "You see, it's not as if there were one
breed, so to speak, of rouble. There were KERENSKY roubles, and
Duma roubles, and NICHOLAS roubles, and every little town had a
rouble-works which was turning out local notes as hard as they, could
go. I missed a fortune there by inches."
"Tell me," I said, in response to his anecdotal eye.
"I had a job there which consisted of going backwards and forwards on
the railway between Otwiski and Triadropoldir in the Caucasus, a six
days' trip. The possibilities of the situation never struck me till
one day I, asked a shopman in Triadropoldir to give me my change in
Otwiski roubles--both towns had their own currency, of course. He gave
me five Otwiski roubles for one of his own town. I thought a bit about
that, and when I got back to Otwiski I tried the same thing, and found
I could get three Triadropoldir roubles there for one Otwiski.
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