would receive £${\displaystyle 10}$ and the boy ${\displaystyle 2}$ shillings. Ten pounds would be a small quantity compared with £${\displaystyle 1000}$; but two shillings is a small small quantity indeed, of a very secondary order. But what would be the disproportion if the fraction, instead of being ${\displaystyle {\tfrac {1}{100}}}$, had been settled at ${\displaystyle {\tfrac {1}{1000}}}$ part? Then, while Mr. Millionaire got his £${\displaystyle 1000}$, Mr. Secretary would get only £${\displaystyle 1}$, and the boy less than one farthing!

The witty Dean Swift^[1] once wrote:

An ox might worry about a flea of ordinary size–a small creature of the first order of smallness. But he would probably not trouble himself about a flea’s flea; being of the second order of smallness, it would be negligible. Even a gross of fleas’ fleas would not be of much account to the ox.