"'Then I have a proposition that might interest you. '

"I pricked up my ears. 'What is it?' I said.

"'Could you take a little joyride with me?' he said. 'Between the saxophones and those Charleston-crazy kids, a man can't hear himself think.' I didn't mind-those things don't break up until 3 A. M.; I knew I could stand a spell of fresh air. He had a long, low wicked-looking Hispano-Suiza. Class.

"I must have dozed off. I woke up when we stopped at his place. He took me in and fixed me a drink and told me about the stasis-only he called it a 'level-entropy field. ' And he showed it to me. He did a lot of stunts with it, put a cat in it, left it in while we killed a drink. It was all right.

"'But that isn't the half of it, ' he said. 'Watch. ' He took the cat and threw it, right through where the field would be if it was turned on. When the cat was right spang in the center of the area, he threw the switch. We waited again, a little longer this time. Then he released the switch. The cat came sailing out, just the way it was heading when we saw it last. It landed, spitting and swearing.

"'That was just to convince you, ' he said, 'that inside that field, time doesn't exist-no increase of entropy. The cat never knew the field was turned on. '

"Then he changed his tack. "Jack, " he says, 'what will the country be like in twenty-five years?'

"I thought about it. 'The same-only more so,' I decided.

"'Think A. T. & T. will still be a good investment?'

"'Certainly!'

"'Jack, ' he says softly, "would you enter that field for ten shares of A. T. & T. ?',

"'For how long?'

"'Twenty-five years, Jack.'

"Naturally, it takes a little time to decide a thing like that. Ten of A.T. & T. didn't tempt me; he added ten of U. S. Steel. And he laid 'em out on the table. I was as sure as I'm standing here that the stock would be worth a lot more in a quarter of a century, and a kid fresh out of college doesn't get blue chips to play with very easily. But a quarter of a century! It was like dying. When he added ten of National City, I said, 'Look Mr. Johnson, let me try it for five minutes. If it didn't kill the cat, I ought to be able to hold my breath that long.'

"He had been filling out the assignments in my name, just to tempt me. He said, 'Surely, Jack.' I stepped to the proper spot on the floor while I still had my courage up. I saw him reach for the switch.

"That's all I know."

Hamilton Felix sat up suddenly. "Huh? How's that?"

"That's all I know," repeated Smith. "I started to tell him to go ahead, when I realized he wasn't there any more. The room was filled with strangers, it was a different room. I was here. I was now."

"That," said Hamilton, "deserves another drink."

They drank it in silence.

"My real trouble is this," said Smith. "I don't understand this world at all. I'm a business man, I'd like to go into business here. (Mind you, I've got nothing against this world, this period. It seems okay, but I don't understand it.) I can't go into business. Damn it, nothing works the same. All they taught me in school, all I learned on the Street, seems utterly foreign to the way they do business now."

"I should think that business would be much the same in any age-fabrication, buying, selling."

"Yes and no. I'm a finance man-and, damn it, finance is cockeyed nowadays!"

"I admit that the details are a little involved," Hamilton answered, "but the basic principles are evident enough. Say-I've a friend coming over who is the chief mathematician for the department of finance. He'll straighten you out."

Smith shook his head decisively. "I've been experted to death. They don't speak my lingo."

"Well," said Hamilton, "I might tackle the problem myself."

"Would you? Please?"

Hamilton thought about it. It was one thing to kid sober-sided Clifford about his "money-machine"; another matter entirely to explain the workings of finance economics to ... to the hypothetical Man from Arcturus. "Suppose we start this way," he said. "It's basically a matter of costs and prices. A business man manufactures something. That costs him money-materials, wages, housing, and so forth. In order to stay in business he has to get his costs back in prices. Understand me?"

"That's obvious."

"Fine. He has put into circulation an amount of money exactly equal to his costs."

"Say that again."

"Eh? It's a simple identity. The money he has had to spend, put into circulation, is his costs."

"Oh ... but how about his profit?"

"His profit is part of his cost. You don't expect him to work for nothing."

"But profits aren't costs. They're ... they're profits."

Hamilton felt a little baffled. "Have it your own way. Costs-what you rail 'costs'-plus profit must equal price. Costs and profits are available as purchasing power to buy the product at a price exactly equal to them. That's how purchasing power comes into existence."

"But ... but he doesn't buy from himself."

"He's a consumer, too. He uses his profits to pay for his own and other producers' products."

"But he owns his own products."

"Now you've got me mixed up. Forget about him buying his own products. Suppose he buys what he needs for himself from other business men. It comes out the same in the long run. Let's get on. Production puts into circulation the amount of money-exactly-needed to buy the product. But some of that money put into circulation is saved and invested in new production. There it is a cost charge against the new production, leaving a net shortage in necessary purchasing power. The government makes up that shortage by issuing new money."

"That's the point that bothers me," said Smith. "It's all right for the government to issue money, but it ought to be backed by something-gold, or government bonds."

"Why, in the Name of the Egg, should a symbol represent anything but the thing it is supposed to accomplish?"

"But you talk as if money was simply an abstract symbol."

"What else is it?"

Smith did not answer at once. They had reached an impasse of different concepts, totally different orientations. When he did speak it was to another point. "But the government simply gives away all this new money. That's rank charity. It's demoralizing. A man should work for what he gets. But forgetting that aspect for a moment, you can't run a government that way. A government is just like a business. It can't be all outgo and no income."

"Why can't it?' There's no parallel between a government and a business. They are for entirely different purposes."

"But it's not sound. It leads to bankruptcy. Read Adam Smith."

"I don't know this Adam Smith. Relative of yours?"

"No, he's a- Oh, Lord!"

"Crave pardon?"

"It's no use," Smith said. "We don't speak the same lingo."

"I am afraid that is the trouble, really. I think perhaps you should go to see a corrective semantician."

"Anyhow," Smith said, one drink later, "I didn't come here to ask you to explain finance to me. I came for another purpose."

"Yes?"

"Well, you see I had already decided that I couldn't go into finance. But I want to get to work, make some money. Everybody here is rich-except me."

"Rich?"

"They look rich to me. Everybody is expensively dressed. Everybody eats well-Hell! They give food away-it's preposterous."

"Why don't you live on the dividend? Why worry about money?"

"I could, of course, but, shucks, I'm a working man. There are business chances all around. It drives me nuts not to do something about them. But I can't-I don't know the ropes. Look-there is just one thing else besides finance that I know well. I thought you might be able to show me how to capitalize on it."

"What is it?"

"Football."

"Football?"

"Football. I'm told that you are the big man in games. Games 'tycoon' they called you." Hamilton conceded it wordlessly. "Now football is a game. There ought to be money in it, handled right."