llions of
people would lose money--just as surely as if it had been stolen from
them--if this device went on the market."

Bending frowned. He hadn't thought of it in exactly that way. "Still,"
he said tentatively, "didn't blacksmiths and buggy-whip manufacturers
and horse-breeders lose money after World War I?"

"Not to this extent," Olcott said, shaking his head. "This is not 1918,
Mr. Bending. Sixty years ago, our economy was based on gold, not, as it
is today on production and manpower, centered in the vast interlocking
web of American industry."

Condley said: "Mr. Olcott said a moment ago that millions of people
would lose money just as surely as if it had been stolen from them. I
think it would be more proper to say that the money will be destroyed,
not stolen. A thief, after all, does put money back into circulation
after he steals it. But when vast amounts of wealth are suddenly removed
from circulation completely, the economic balance is disastrously
upset."

* * * * *

Sam Bending was still frowning. His grandfather had been a small
businessman in 1929--not fabulously wealthy, but certainly well off by
the social standards of the day. Two years later, in 1931, he was broke,
wiped out completely, happy and eager to accept any odd job he could get
to support his family.

Sam's father had had to leave school during the Thirties and go to work
in order to bring in enough money to keep the family going. Grandfather
Bending, weakened by long hours of labor that he was physically unfit
for, had become an invalid, and the entire support of the family had
devolved upon Sam's father.

He could remember his dad talking about the breadlines and the free-soup
kitchens. He could remember his grandmother, her hands crippled by
arthritis, aggravated by long hours at a commercial sewing machine in a
clothing center sweat-shop, just so she could bring in that little extra
money that meant so much to her children and her invalid husband.

Could one invention bring all that back again? Could his own
harmless-looking Converter plunge millions back into that kind of
misery? It seemed hardly possible, but Sam couldn't banish the specter
of the Great Depression from his mind.

"Just how far-reaching would this economic upset be?" he asked Condley.

Condley had taken out his gold fountain pen again and was rolling it
between his palms. "Well, that's a question with a long answer, Mr.
Bendin