The little Houdini of calculations was at last into a predicament where
it seemed that he never could figure himself out. One fancies him
gazing intently over the Finance Department of whose precise technique
he knew nothing as yet, and saying to himself:

"Well, White did a wonderful turn. I don't believe the audience will
like mine half as well--at first. No audiences ever do. I'm bound to
be more or less unpopular because I don't know how to act a bit like
Tetrazzini."

The great organized orgy was over, when the dollars followed the drum
and the drum thumped at every crossroad; when a Victory Bond in every
top commode drawer was more necessary than a bottle in every cellar.
The whole nation, four times tagged for Victory, was once more tagged
for reconstruction. Done with credits to England for purchase of war
material in Canada, we were invited to extend credits to war-swept
nations in Europe who would be sure to want things made in Canada to
help put them on President Wilson's new map of self-determination.
Even profiteers now admitted everything to be abnormal. The whole
country was like a milkfed pumpkin at the fair. War wages inclined
every man to become a profiteer. The land was teeming with war money
and denuded of necessary goods. People who used to be content with
good wages, a plain rented home and a bottle of beer, went out after
short hours, high wages, French heels, $300 coats and motor-cars. It
was part of the emancipation of people for which soldiers had not died.

"Er--if you need me, telephone, old chap," one fancies Sir Thomas
saying as he carried Sir Henry's luggage to his room. "But I'm sure
you are the man for the job. I really have to go back to private
finance. However, the super-tariff on imports of luxuries is one thing
with which you will feel at home, I am sure. Quite suited to your
temperament, Sir Henry."

In one of Scott's novels a gentleman named Front de Boeuf pulls out a
Jew's tooth every time he wants more money. Both our national dentists
knew that a super-tariff on anything is the very thing that makes a
large number of well-to-do people want it. People bought luxuries in
this country and growled at the high cost of necessities. Most folk
feel rather proud of a big price for a coat or a gown or a
Chesterfield, if they can get even by skimping on the price of butter
and potatoes. Low-value money and visions of Utopia had played far
worse havoc with the people