‘That explains why we’re here in Sicily instead of Naples.
You’ve probably got the whole damned plane filled with chick-peas already.’
‘Shhhhhh!’ Milo cautioned sternly, with a meaningful glance toward Orr.
‘Remember your mission.’
The bomb bay, the rear and tail sections of the plane and most of the top turret gunner’s section were all filled with bushels of chick-peas when they arrived at the airfield to take off for Malta.
Yossarian’s mission on the trip was to distract Orr from observing where Milo bought his eggs, even though Orr was a member of Milo’s syndicate and, like every other member of Milo’s syndicate, owned a share.
His mission was silly, Yossarian felt, since it was common knowledge that Milo bought his eggs in Malta for seven cents apiece and sold them to the mess halls in his syndicate for five cents apiece.
‘I just don’t trust him,’ Milo brooded in the plane, with a backward nod toward Orr, who was curled up like a tangled rope on the low bushels of chick-peas, trying torturedly to sleep.
‘And I’d just as soon buy my eggs when he’s not around to learn my business secrets.
What else don’t you understand?’
Yossarian was riding beside him in the co-pilot’s seat.
‘I don’t understand why you buy eggs for seven cents apiece in Malta and sell them for five cents.’
‘I do it to make a profit.’
‘But how can you make a profit?
You lose two cents an egg.’
‘But I make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven cents an egg.
Of course, I don’t make the profit.
The syndicate makes the profit. And everybody has a share.’
Yossarian felt he was beginning to understand.
‘And the people you sell the eggs to at four and a quarter cents apiece make a profit of two and three quarter cents apiece when they sell them back to you at seven cents apiece.
Is that right?
Why don’t you sell the eggs directly to you and eliminate the people you buy them from?’
‘Because I’m the people I buy them from,’ Milo explained.
‘I make a profit of three and a quarter cents apiece when I sell them to me and a profit of two and three quarter cents apiece when I buy them back from me.
That’s a total profit of six cents an egg.
I lose only two cents an egg when I sell them to the mess halls at five cents apiece, and that’s how I can make a profit buying eggs for seven cents apiece and selling them for five cents apiece.
I pay only one cent apiece at the hen when I buy them in Sicily.’
‘In Malta,’ Yossarian corrected.
‘You buy your eggs in Malta, not Sicily.’
Milo chortled proudly.
‘I don’t buy eggs in Malta,’ he confessed, with an air of slight and clandestine amusement that was the only departure from industrious sobriety Yossarian had ever seen him make.
‘I buy them in Sicily for one cent apiece and transfer them to Malta secretly at four and a half cents apiece in order to get the price of eggs up to seven cents apiece when people come to Malta looking for them.’
‘Why do people come to Malta for eggs when they’re so expensive there?’
‘Because they’ve always done it that way.’
‘Why don’t they look for eggs in Sicily?’
‘Because they’ve never done it that way.’
‘Now I really don’t understand.
Why don’t you sell your mess halls the eggs for seven cents apiece instead offor five cents apiece?’
‘Because my mess halls would have no need for me then.
Anyone can buy seven-cents-apiece eggs for seven cents apiece.’
‘Why don’t they bypass you and buy the eggs directly from you in Malta at four and a quarter cents apiece?’
‘Because I wouldn’t sell it to them.’
‘Why wouldn’t you sell it to them?’
‘Because then there wouldn’t be as much room for profit.
At least this way I can make a bit for myself as a middleman.’
‘Then you do make a profit for yourself,’ Yossarian declared.
‘Of course I do.
But it all goes to the syndicate.
And everybody has a share.
Don’t you understand?