o
washed the windows, the answer probably was that the firm hadn't got
more than seventy cents in cash.

This is the principle of finance. So long as you can pronounce any
number above a thousand, you have got that much money. You can't work
this scheme with the shoe-store man or the restaurant-owner, but it goes
big on Wall St. or in international financial circles.

This much understood, we see that when the Allies demand 132,000,000,000
gold marks from Germany they know very well that nobody in Germany has
ever seen 132,000,000,000 gold marks and never will. A more surprised
and disappointed lot of boys you couldn't ask to see than the Supreme
Financial Council would be if Germany were actually to send them a
money-order for the full amount demanded.

What they mean is that, taken all in all, Germany owes the world
132,000,000,000 gold marks plus carfare. This includes everything,
breakage, meals sent to room, good will, everything. Now, it is
understood that if they really meant this, Germany couldn't even draw
cards; so the principle on which the thing is figured out is as follows:
(Watch this closely; there is a trick in it).

You put down a lot of figures, like this. Any figures will do, so long
as you can't read them quickly:

132,000,000,000 gold marks

$33,000,000,000 on a current value basis

$21,000,000,000 on reparation account plus 12-1/2% yearly tax on German
exports

11,000,000,000 gold fish

$1.35 amusement tax

866,000 miles. Diameter of the sun

2,000,000,000

27,000,000,000

31,000,000,000

Then you add them together and subtract the number you first thought of.
This leaves 11. And the card you hold in your hand is the seven of
diamonds. Am I right?

XXXII

'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE SUMMER

(_An Imaginary Watch-Night with the Weather Man_)

It was 11 o'clock on the night of June 20. We were seated in the office
of the Weather Bureau on the twenty-ninth floor of the Whitehall
Building, the Weather Man and I, and we were waiting for summer to come.
It was officially due on June 21. We had the almanac's word for it and
years and years of precedent, but still the Weather Man was skeptical.

It had been a hard spring for the Weather Man. Day after day he had been
forced to run a signed statement in the daily papers to the effect that
some time during that day there would probably be showers. And day after
day, with a ghastly consistency, his prophecy had come true. People h