My Lost Dollar by Stephen Leacock

Critical Analysis

It is a humourous story which tells us about the various strategies applied by the author to
retrieve a dollar lent to a friend but all these remain unsuccessful.

There is no plot in the story. It is only a lamentation of the narrator over his lost dollar. A person
who borrows money often forgets all about it but the lender does not. The title of the story is
quite appropriate as the entire story revolves around a particular dollar the narrator has lost. The
circumstance of borrowing here is perfectly natural- his friend Todd leaving for Bermuda has to
pay a taxi and he finds that he does not have change. The narrator comes to his rescue by lending
him a dollar and he even asks whether it was sufficient. Little does he know that it is the last time
that he had seen the dollar. When Todd returns from Bermuda the dollar had been forgotten by
him. Even after repeated clues to remind him of the loan like referring to the American Dollar or
the cost of the trip, the narrator fails to rouse his memory.

The narrator loses hope of ever getting his dollar back. However he is quick to clarify that he
bears Todd no grudge and the matter would not affect their friendship. There are other people
who have borrowed from him and forgotten and he decides to simply add Todd’s name to the list
of borrowers.

Then a new thought begins to haunt the narrator’s mind. He thinks that if other men have
forgotten about the money that he has lent them then it was possible that he himself might have
borrowed money from others and forgotten about it. He knows that once he forgets to pay
someone then he might never pay him all his life.

The narrator requests all his creditors to speak out and tell him if he owes them money. He even
decides to make a list so that he does not forget. In this list the names of those people who have
lent him money over a bridge table or for drinking soda water will not be included. He will only
include names of those to whom he has lent money in a situation similar to that of Todd.

The narrator wishes to start a Back to honesty movement which calls for a repayment of these
loans. For such a meagre amount as a single dollar, he thinks of such high –sounding projects,
rather than the direct solution of reminding his friend to pay it back.