Cash is easy...

Basically, that's what Brian Mulroney said when he was asked why he took about a quarter of a million dollars from Karlheinz Schreiber. You see, he was trying to get back into "private life" and had no staff to help him handle a big fat cheque.

Apparently, all this cold hard cash is also much easier to keep out of banks and in Mulroney's private safes under the radar, of course.

It's also a better business practice to make deals in a seedy room at the HoJo than say, in an office.

And for Mulroney, it makes things so much easier when you don't even have a business going at all.

"If he (Schreiber) had come to me, for example, at the time when I was installed in my legal firm with an assistant and secretary and so on I would have said, 'Look, we are here during business hours and what have you, can you give me a cheque to begin this relationship.'"

Sure, Brian. That's exactly what you would have said.

You can't roll around naked on a cheque. I mean, you could, but it takes all the fun out of it.