entury Man Talks About Life

ome time ago Baron Von Lodge was the head of a small country near Switzerland known as Lilliland.

The Baron’s closest associate was Professor Hamblin who advised the Baron on almost everything that he needed to know about the management of Lilliland, plus the subjects of money, romance, politics and religion.

The Professor often wished that he had someone who was older and perhaps wiser than he, but he knew of no one like that around.

Then one day he met a man who was over one hundred years old, so the official Lilliland records indicated. People called him the century man because of his advanced age. He was a very quiet person who lived alone on a very lovely houseboat on the large Lake Lilliland in the summer and in a hotel suite in the winter. He was a man of wealth.

At a chance meeting with the Professor, the two men enjoyed a long conversation about life. The Professor inquired discretely as to how he obtained his wealth, but the century man would only tell him about his philosophy of life if they struck a deal. The Professor was curious and asked what the terms of the deal might be.

He said that his houseboat was sinking and needed a lot of repairs each summer and he did not like being near strangers in the hotel so he said that he would like to use the large apartment above the royal boathouse. He would pay to fix it up with his furniture and hire a servant to manage it.

The Professor said that since the royal boathouse had not been used in many years, and if the Baron approved, they would have a deal. Since the Baron wanted to learn how to live to be a hundred years old, the deal was struck.

The century man was named Sir Edward. His father owned a candy store and Edward inherited it but he did not like it so he sold it. Edward admitted that he did not like candy but loved numbers. The Professor thought how eccentric could a person be to love numbers over candy? But the story continues. He admitted to being lazy except for numbers. He loved working with numbers. So he opened a small loan company to loan out the money he inherited from his father’s candy store. The company was called the One Percent Loan Company. Anyone with a good name could borrow money in denominations of $1,000 at one percent per month on a monthly basis. While it sounded like a good buy, if you look at one percent interest, it eventually made him quite wealthy.

He had a daughter, Victoria, who he had trained in the loan business, and she suggested they donate the interest to a summer children’s theater in Lilliland Park. There the children could take acting lessons for free tuition. The rest of the interest money would be given to the local charities. They hired a producer to run the park program. Permission was given to use the Lilliland stories available as a basis for the plays. And there were no royalties.

Sir Edward did indeed have a warm heart.