ike this all day," Mrs. Schermerhorn said. She looked up
nervously as the side door opened and the twins came in.

"We just wanted some more copper wire, Mom, for the thing we're making,"
Donald said, but he hesitated when he heard the news broadcast. Both
twins dropped silently on the arms of an overstuffed chair and listened.

The bulletin was brief; it reviewed the growing chaos among the foreign
exchanges, the expanding list of bankruptcies. Two European nations,
driven to internal disaster, had gone to war; already the big powers
were choosing sides, framing ultimatums. War seemed to be the one
universal panacea for all things. In New York stores had started to
quote new dollar prices every hour, although purchases made in silver
were still relatively stable at the old value. The grating voice
concluded, "The first estimates of today's yield from the San Benedicto
field place it in the neighborhood of seventy-thousand tons; mining
experts predict that tomorrow the figure may be tripled." As the music
came on again, Donald got up and snapped off the radio.

"The economy of the world's being wrecked, isn't it?" he asked. "By too
much gold."

"I don't understand," Pop Schermerhorn answered, shaking his head.
"Gold's valuable; we need it; it makes us rich. But now, when we have
all we want--"

"The trouble is, it has no use," David said. "Governments buy it and
bury it. If gold becomes as plentiful as iron ore, we still can't do
much with it. You can't make skyscrapers or sewer pipes out of gold;
it's too soft."

"The government ought to clear out the field and stop the mining,"
Donald suggested. "That might help."

"Not as long as the world knows the gold is still here," Elvin answered.
He studied the twins carefully; their comment on the economy seemed
mature for tenth graders. Suddenly Elvin's weary mind began to piece
together a vague kind of understanding, when he remembered the
transformation of the Bunsen burner to gold. Beyond his shadowy
comprehension loomed the vista of a grandiose dream of how he could use
the situation for his own profit. It was intoxicating, like reaching out
for the stars and finding them within his grasp.

"It's all crazy!" David cried. "We don't really use gold, anyway, in our
economy. Why can't we just forget it, and go on using dollars the way we
used to?"

"Because people are fools," Elvin said.

"Or, perhaps, just children," David replied. He stood up, stretching, so
th