(_breaking in_). One moment! When you say gold has
appreciated, you mean, of course, that the purchasing power of gold has
increased--in other words, commodities are cheaper. Isn't that so?

_First W. I. M._ Yes. Well, what then?

_Second W. I. M._ What's your remedy? Do you think you can make things
better by fixing a ratio between gold and silver? In the first place,
you can't do it; they've got nothing to do with one another.

_First W. I. M._ (_triumphantly_). Haven't they? What have you got to
say, then, about the Indian rupee? That's where the whole of your
beautiful system comes to grief. You can't deny that.

_Second W. I. M._ The Indian rupee has got nothing to do with it. My
theory is, that it's all due to the American coinage of silver, and
(_vaguely_), if we do the same as they, why, we shall only make things
worse. No, no, my boy, you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick,
there. Look at the Bland Bill. Do you want to have that kind of thing in
England?

_Inquirer._ God forbid! By the way, what was the Bland Bill?

_Second W. I. M._ _What!_ you don't know what the Bland Bill was? Don't
you remember it? It provided that a certain amount of silver was to be
coined every year, and the Treasury was to hold the surplus until it
reached a certain value, and then,--but every schoolboy knows what
happened.

_Average Man._ What did happen, as a matter of fact?

_Second W. I. M._ (_scornfully_). Why, the market was flooded.

_First W. I. M._ Yes, and that exactly proves my point. Make fifteen the
ratio between gold and silver, and you'll never have the market flooded
again.

_Second W. I. M._ (_hotly_). How do you make that out?

_First W. I. M._ It's as plain as a pikestaff. Make silver your legal
tender for large amounts in this country, and you stop all these United
States games at one blow.

_Second W. I. M._ Fiddlesticks! I suppose you'll want us to believe next
that if we become bi-metallists, corn and everything else will go up in
value?

_First W. I. M._ Of course it will. We've only got to get Germany and
France, and the rest of them to come in, and the thing's as good as
done. What I say is, adopt bi-metallism, and you relieve trade and
agriculture, and everything else.

_A. M._ Do you mean we shall have to pay more for everything?

_First W. I. M._ No, of course not; I mean that the appreciation of gold
is a calamity which we've got to get rid of.

_A. M._ I don't see it. If my sove