er formed a partnership, but even then we
were not strong enough to free ourselves. One night the box was opened
with a snap and I saw the thin, pale face of my master looking down at
us. He selected me and ninety-nine of my companions and placed us
outside the box.

"There's the money," he said, "as I told you. It's all yours. Are you
satisfied now?" I looked across the table at a young girl with a
white, set face that was very, very beautiful. She did not answer.

"If you want it why don't you take it?" he snarled at her. "I can tell
you again that there is nothing else for you."

The girl had something in her hand that I saw. I see more than most
men. The thing she had made a sharp noise and spit a flame at him. He
fell across the table and something red and warm went all over me. I
began to be unhappy, for I thought I saw that there was something in
the world that could not be bought. For him I cared nothing.

It was strange that after my transfers I was at last used to pay the
judge who tried the girl. I was in the judge's pocket when he
sentenced her to death. He said: "May the Lord have mercy on your
soul." But I knew, for I told you I could see more than most men,
that he didn't believe in the Lord or in souls. He left the court to
spend me at a ----, but I think that I will not mention that shameful
change. There was nothing strange about my falling into the hangman as
part of his pay. I had been in worse hands in the interim.

I saw her die. Not a word did she say about the man she killed, though
it might have saved her to tell of the mock marriage and the other
things I knew she could reveal. She thought it better to die, I
suppose, than be shamed. So she died--unbought. It made me still more
unhappy to think of it at all. The dark stain never left me, but I
cared nothing for that. What troubled was that I knew she wanted me,
was starving for what I could buy, but spurned me and died rather than
take me. There was something that had more power than I possessed.

I made up my mind to forget, so my next effort was the greatest I had
yet made--my partnership with millions of others. I traveled long
distances over and over again. I dug gold from the earth and so
produced others like myself. I built railroads, skyscrapers,
steamships and great public works. I disguised myself, in order to
enhance my power, under new forms of paper and metal, coin, drafts,
checks, orders and notes. Indeed I scarcely knew myse