“My God,” I says, “I wished somebody would recognize me!” And then I felt kind of mean, for fear he’d think I meant about him not recognizing me on the street! He goes on to tell me that the Spokesman is worried all the time about these debts He lies awake at night and thinks about them it’s the only question He can’t seem to leave alone to settle itself. The reason for that is because He was born and raised in that cold and rocky state--by the way I made a mistake because I said the name of that state was Florida but I was a dumb-bell because Florida is another place. I know now because today there was a feller come in to try to sell us some lots there it seems there is a boom and he had some extra-fine land-front lots that could be had this week only; he explained that they are called land-front lots because they are in the bay but they front on the land and they will be on the land when the bottom of the bay has been moved underneath them. But the Spokesman was raised in a state that is rocky and cold, I have forget it again but I think maybe it is North Carolina because it is far up North. And you see the worst a man can do in that state is not to pay his debts and collecting debts is the one thing that the Spokesman can be sure of knowing how, He has done it all His life. But He never had so big a debt to collect in his home state in fact Mr. Edgerton says there has never been such a big debt in the world. He says that the Statesman has nightmares about it and imagines that the debt has broke loose and is rolling down over Him like it was one of them mountains of North Carolina. He wakes up all in a sweat and He sends for Mr. Edgerton in a hurry and insists He has got to know how He can collect more money than there is in the world. That sounds like a joke but it’s really so because it is supposed to be paid in gold and it is twiced as much gold as there is. Mr. Edgerton says there is a professor in Germany that is trying to find out how to make more but he has not got it paying yet and besides they couldn’t get it away from the professor without another war and that would mean we would have to lend more money again. But something has got to be done, else the Spokesman won’t ever be able to get a good night’s sleep, and it is undermining His health something fierce. So you see Mom there was another job loaded onto my poor shoulders that was never trained to carry such loads. But I told you I was going to see it through and I sat there and thought real hard and I says, “Them Dagoes got goods from us with that money, didn’t they?” And he says they did, so I says, “Then the way to pay the debts is for them to send us back some goods, whatever kind they can make that we need.” But he says, “No, Miss Riggs that would never do at all,” he says, “and the reason is that we have got factories over here to make all the goods for ourselves.” “Well,” says I, “but we can have twiced as many goods.”