price. After that, I hope to get in touch with a leading dental supply house, and possibly one of the larger New York jewelers—Tiffanys, for instance. We will have no difficulty in disposing of it, I imagine."
"Difficulty!" bellowed Baum. "Well if you ain't the suckers!" He advanced on the table and slung himself into the vacant chair beside Sydney Smythe. He leaned forward with his elbows on the cloth, punctuating his remarks with jabs of his stubby forefinger.
"Listen," he said, "you ain't got the ghost of an idea what it's all about. You're like kids with a pie that's too big to eat. It's a damn good thing I horned in when I did.
"You poor saps—ain't you got the least idea what you're doin'? You're makin' gold, that's what you're doin'! I know gold. I'm makin' it for you, an' I tested it—gravity, color, softness, meltin' point, specific heat, acid test—I know all the tricks. I've had 'em used on me, an' I've used 'em myself before this. It's gold I'm makin' down there—real honest to goodness gold, that'll bring you twenty dollars an ounce in any market! An' I'm turnin' it out by the pound!
"Listen here. From now on, I'm the brains of this mob. An' I got them to back me up, an' plenty more like 'em." His thumb jerked back at the two bruisers behind his chair.
T. Paterson Fosdick rose in righteous indignation. "This is an outrage!" he shrilled, crimson to the wattles. "You are impertinent, sir! You may consider yourself discharged!"
"Yeah?" grinned Baum. “Good with me. An' now you're bounced, an' I got your job. Get me?"
Mr. Foskick's Uncontrollable Anger
I THOUGHT Fosdick would burst. He went almost black with rage. He pounded on the table with his ingot and screamed in a piping trill like a peanut whistle. He demanded that these ruffians be thrown out. He demanded that the meeting be adjourned. He demanded that someone do something. Baum jerked his head. The two gunmen clamped down on his flailing arms and jammed our Bursar back into his chair. He stared pop-eyed at the blue-steel of gun-barrels. He subsided. Baum took the floor again.
"Listen," he said, "I'm in. Get that straight. An' I'm stayin'. Why, you innocent babies you, you ain't got the guts to play this game right! You're walkin in your sleep, an' you need a nursemaid. I'm her.
"Try an' get it through your thick heads what you're doin'. You're makin' gold, at about a quarter of what you can get for it. Can you see that? I'll lay you any money you can't see any farther!
"Listen here. How long do you think you can go on clearin' four hundred per cent on your money like you're doin' now, an' like you're plannin' to do? We're turnin' out twenty pounds a day with the layout we've got, an' we can raise that just as far as it'll go. But it won't go far. In six weeks you'd be in a depression that would make 1932 look sick! An' like innocent little lambs you'd be wiped out.
"Why, without me you wouldn't get to first base. You'd fan out—one, two, three. You're a flock of dumb bunnies, that's all, tryin' to play fox. Well, by Gosh, I'll make wolves out of you!
"Listen. We could dribble out that gold in little bits an' keep the price up, but we won't do it. We'll turn it out full blast, an' get stuff for bigger batches. We'll make gold as cheap as lead an’ cheaper, an’ we’ll drive the market an' the coinage down to rock bottom.
"There ain't one of you that hasn't got a hundred grand an' more salted away in a sock somewhere. By God, you're goin' to make it talk now! An' I'll write its speeches for it. We'll get the market down to where it can slide under a snake, an' gold to where they make radiator caps out of it. We'll drive the coinage crazy. An' when it's hit bottom, you're goin' to buy—buy stocks an' bonds an' mortgages an' everythin' you can get your hands on. An' at the same time we freeze down on production, an' things begin to look up. You'll make plenty on that, an' you'll buy gold on the side—soak it up an' dump it somewhere out of sight. Make a lot of statues of yourself, if you want to—it'll be cheap enough. But get it out of the way fast.
"O. K. You got the cream of the market. You're in on the ground floor on every money-makin' racket in the country an' maybe the world. An' then you soak up the gold an' freeze on it. What happens? The market goes on risin'. They have an' election, an' prosperity starts cornin’ round the corner. An' then some guy wants a weddin' ring or a gold tooth, an' there ain't enough gold loose to put in your eye. In just about two jumps we're back where we started, only where a couple of thousand guys had a couple of million apiece before, you got it all between you. You'll be sittin' pretty, an' what you say'll go, what I mean! You can run this country just the way you like it, an' there ain't a man livin' with the guts to call your bluff. Why? You got that gold stowed away where it's safe, an’ you can make it by the ton without half tryin’.
"I tell you, you'll be king-pins around here! An' when I think of the plans you had, dribblin' it out for teeth an' rings to a hick jeweler—good heavens, sometimes I wonder how such dumb clucks live! It's damn good for you that I got brains under my hat, an' that I didn't decide to freeze you out! You'd be out, what I mean, an' that goes for all of you!"
Baum's Speech Is Ended
THERE was a feverish glitter in T. Paterson Fosdick's eye. Money always puts it there, when it's coming in. And I saw it reflected in every eye at that table, even the fishy stare of the Rev. Henry P. Winters. It was gold-fever, power-fever, and they had it bad! I leaned forward and slipped in a question.
"Tell me, Dr. Baum—just where do you come in? What are we paying you for your fatherly guidance?"
Baum grinned fatly and folded his hands over his stomach. "Well," he chuckled, "so there is someone with brains enough to ask that! Well, mister, I'll tell
