ty has a
coal yard. When the autumn comes, Jones's bins are piled high and in
addition to this, Jones has several carloads of coal on a siding, and
numerous other carloads in transit. Jones's brother, who is interested
in a coal mine, has advised Jones that as there is prospect of a miner's
strike, he had better get his full winter's supply in advance, with a
little extra and this has been so arranged. The strike takes place as
predicted and then owing to war conditions in Europe, there comes a coal
shortage throughout the land.

With the arrival of the first touch of winter various people in the
community begin sending orders to Jones. In the meantime, he has been
doing a little thinking. His customers have got to have coal and they've
got to buy it from him. Under existing conditions, there is no other
way for them to procure it, at any price. So to speak, he holds them in
the hollow of his hand.

His entire supply has cost him five dollars a ton and he had figured to
sell it at six, which would allow him his usual satisfactory profit. But
now it dawns upon him that if he refuses to sell a single ton of it for
less than twenty dollars, his people will have to pay that, or freeze,
and he will make more profit in this one winter than all the rest of the
years put together.

So he makes up his mind to put up his price to twenty dollars and to
meet all complaints by replying with a shrug that he is not asking any
one to buy--they are free to get their coal elsewhere.

Is not Jones perfectly honest? Would any business man of the present day
blame him? Is he not entitled to make all the money he can, in
accordance with the laws? Is there not every reason for his intellect to
approve of his shrewdness in taking advantage of his opportunity?

But suppose Jones's mother is a sweet, old-fashioned lady whom he has
always loved and revered; and suppose upon learning of the situation,
she calls her son to her side, takes his hand in hers and talks to him
in this wise:

"My son, these people are all dependent upon you, to keep from
freezing. They are entirely at your mercy. To take advantage of helpless
people and fleece them of their savings, because unexpected
circumstances have placed them in your power, is not the kind of thing I
could bear to see you do. It does not seem to me quite worthy or
honorable."

I have imagined it to be Jones's mother speaking thus; but if Jones's
father happened to be an old-fashioned gentl