I thought of what Jerry had told me of the Socratic genius of gervers and housemen; undoubtedly counterfeiters had their talent for dialectics too. It might go something like this: the printing of a little extra money would not directly injure any individual. In fact, there was quite an argument whether it damaged people in general at all. Many highly approved people were openly in favor of a freer issue of currency without bothering whether a gold or silver dollar was behind every bank note. Mr. Ford and Mr. Edison themselves had spoken for a scheme which, while not similar to Janvier’s system, yet had sent the good bankers into frightful attacks of financial hydrophobia. Mightn’t Janvier show plenty of authority to suggest that he wasn’t in a bad business at all? And suppose he compared it with other businesses; mine, for choice. What was the harm in shoving out a little informal currency compared with the damage in passing out drugged and adulterated food, which many a first family has done? Then compare it with the coal brokerage business, from which many of my firmest friends are fat. What did they do for their profits, during a late, lamented shortage, but hold a few carloads of coal back from the market and away from people freezing for it so they could whoop the price a little more? Wouldn’t everybody be a bit ahead if these people, who haven’t the slightest fear of any “long house,” had stayed out of the coal business and simply printed their own money for their profits and shoved it into circulation without harming anybody? You see, as I thought it over, it didn’t seem strange to me that Doris Wellington could smile and smile at me and not feel herself a villainess at all. I wondered, from time to time, exactly what was in that nice, new suit case under my feet. A few hundred thousand in neat, new bills, I thought; or possibly plates. Maybe both. That suit case kept bothering my bean-business conscience. It was decidedly one matter to like Doris Wellington and wish her to stay out of the clutches of old “Iron Age”; but it was something quite up another street to take charge of that handbag full of cash and plates and deliver them at destination for her. Obviously, this was what she meant me to do. The day was waning; and all lights were on as we drew into Toledo, where old “Iron Age” sent his sheaf of telegrams over to Western Union. He received a couple of yellow envelopes too. I saw him strolling on the platform, reading enclosures and watching the doors of the train. He was developing a more menacing look. Neither Doris nor George got off; Felice did, flirting expertly with one of the clothing merchants. “All aboard.” We were going again. Cleveland, the next stop.