"Even so," said the Idiot, "or at least that is the way I understand it. You've not only got to tell how much you've got, but you must also disclose the sources of your revenue. If you found a cent on the corner of Main Street and Desdemona Alley on the fifteenth day of December, 1916, thereby adding that much to your annual receipts, you have got to enter it in your statement, and so clearly that the authorities will understand just how, when, and where it came into your possession, all under oath; and you are not allowed to deduct your current living expenses from it, either. If in stooping over to pick up that cent you busted your suspenders, and had to go and pay fifty cents for a new pair, thereby losing forty-nine cents on the transaction, you aren't allowed to make any deductions on that account. That cent is 'Net'--not 'Nit', but 'Net.' Same way if in a crowded car you put your hand into what you presumed to be your own pocket, and pulled out unexpectedly a roll of twenty dollar bills amounting to two hundred dollars in all, and then in an absent-minded moment got away with it before you realized that it belonged to the man standing next to you, you'd have to put it down on your statement just the same as all the rest of the items, under penalty of prosecution for concealing sources of revenue from the officers of the law. Oh, it's a fine mess we smart Alexanders of the hour have got ourselves into in our effort to establish a pipe line between the plutocratic pocketbook and the United States Treasury. We all hypnotized ourselves into the pleasing belief that the income tax was going to be a jolly little club with which to hit old Brother Plute on the head, and make him fork over, while we Nixicrats sat on the fence and grinned. It was going to be great fun watching the Plutes disgorge, and we all had a notion that life was going to be just one exgurgitating moving picture after another, with us sitting in front row seats gloating over the Sorrows of Croesus and his coughing coffers. But, alas for our dreams of joy, it hasn't worked out quite that way. The vexation of the blooming thing is visited upon every one of us. Them as has has got to pay. Them as hasn't has got to prove that they don't have to pay, and I tell you right now, Mr. Bib, it is going to be a terrific proposition for a lot of chaps in this land of ours who are skinning along on nothing a year, but making a noise like a ten-thousand-dollar proposition." "I fear me their name is legion," said the Bibliomaniac.