mortgage your home for an automobile.'

"'It's for the benefit o' my customers,' says he.

"'Something purty for 'em to look at?' I asked.

"'It will quicken deliveries,' says he.

"'You can't afford it,' I says.

"'Yes, I can,' says he. 'I've put up prices twenty per cent., an'
it ain't agoin' to bother me to pay for it.'

"'Oh, then your customers are goin' to pay for it!' I says, 'an'
you're only a guarantor.'

"'I wouldn't put it that way,' says he. 'It costs more to live
these days. Everything is goin' up.'

"'Includin' taxes,' I says to Bill, an' went to work an' drew his
mortgage for him, an' he got his automobile.

"I'd intended to take my trade to his store, but when I saw that he
planned to tax the community for his luxuries I changed my mind and
went over to Eph Hill's. He kept the only other decent grocery
store in the village. His prices were just about on a level with
the others.

"'How do you explain it that prices have gone up so?' I asked.

"'Why, they say it's due to an overproduction o' gold,' says he.

"'Looks to me like an overproduction of argument,' I says. 'The
old Earth keeps shellin' out more gold ev'ry year, an' the more she
takes out o' her pockets the more I have to take out o' mine.'

"Wal, o' course I had to keep in line, so I put up the prices o' my
work a little to be in fashion. Everybody kicked good an' plenty,
an' nobody worse'n Sam an' Bill an' Ephraim, but I told 'em how I'd
read that there was so much gold in the world it kind o' set me
hankerin'.

"Ye know I had ten acres o' worn-out land in the edge o' the
village, an' while others bought automobiles an' such luxuries I
invested in fertilizers an' hired a young man out of an
agricultural school an' went to farmin'. Within a year I was
raisin' all the meat an' milk an' vegetables that I needed, an'
sellin' as much ag'in to my neighbors.

"Well, Pointview under Lizzie was like Rome under Theodora. The
immorals o' the people throve an' grew. As prices went up decency
went down, an' wisdom rose in value like meat an' flour. Seemed so
everybody that had a dollar in the bank an' some that didn't bought
automobiles. They kept me busy drawin' contracts an' deeds an'
mortgages an' searchin' titles, an' o' course I prospered. More
than half the population converted property into cash an' cash into
folly--automobiles, piano-players, foreign tours, vocal music,
modern languages, an' the aspirations of othe