commission agent--who
would pay a substantial sum for them."

"That is just what Gorman said would happen once it was understood that
your firm is behind the new company."

"Gorman is--well, astute. But you understand, I am sure, that we cannot
do that kind of business."

"I always had a suspicion," I said, "that Gorman's scheme was fishy."

"I do not say fishy," said Ascher. "Gorman's plan is legitimate,
legitimate business, but business of an unenlightened kind. What is
wrong with Gorman is that he does not see far enough, does not grasp the
root principle of all business. We have a valuable invention. I do not
mean merely an invention which will put money into the pocket of the
inventor and into our pockets. If it were valuable only in that way
Gorman would be quite right, and our wisest course would be to take what
we could get with the least amount of risk and trouble, in other words
to accept the best price which we could induce the buyers to give us.
But this invention is valuable in quite another way. The new machine,
if we are right about it, is going to facilitate the business of retail
sellers all over the world. It will save time, increase accuracy, and,
being cheaper, make its way into places where the old machines never
went."

"Ah," I said, "curiously enough I looked at the matter in that way when
Gorman first mentioned it to me. I said that the world ought to get the
benefit of this invention."

Ascher nodded.

"I see that," I went on. "I understand that way of looking at it. But
surely that's altruism, not business. Business men don't risk their
money with the general idea of benefiting humanity. That isn't the way
things are done."

"I agree," said Ascher. "It's not the way things are done or can be done
at present, though there is more altruism in business than most people
think. Even we financiers----"

"I know you subscribe to charity," I said, "largely, enormously."

"That's not what I mean," said Ascher. "But we need not go into that. I
believe that business is not philanthropy, finance is not altruism."

"Then why----?" I said. "On strict business principles, altruism apart,
why not take what we can get out of Tim Gorman's invention and let the
thing itself drop into the dustheap?"

"On business principles," said Ascher, "on the strictest business
principles, it would be foolish to do that. From time to time men hit
on some improvement in the way of making things or in the way of