If You're Smart—

Seems a pretty obvious crack for a business sharper to make to an inventor. If you're so smart, why don't you make some money yourself? Maybe so. But this scientist had an even better answer—
If you're so damn smart, why ain't you rich?
That hoary wisecrack must have been all of three centuries old when Wolf Carmichael pulled it on Dr. Claud Kellog. The Wolf of Saturn loved it and used it often. That day he lay back in his swivel chair, chuckling offensively somewhere in the fatty depths of his triple chin, as he threw it. But his roving, piggish eyes showed no mirth. They were hard and scheming, the ruthless eyes that had made him master of all commerce and industry throughout the Saturnian system. To his money-grubbing mentality, this question was the ultimate in triumphant repartee.
A scholar named Archimedes was asked that question once, replied Dr. Kellog, flushing angrily, and to prove he could be rich if he wished, he knocked off his important mathematical researches long enough to buy up all the wine presses in the country. It was winter, then, but when the next fall came the vintners had to have their presses back or else lose the grape crop. Archimedes made a tidy profit.
Never heard of him, snorted Carmichael. Musta been some little fellow on Venus. If he was a real big shot in the booze racket, he'd be on the board of Interplanetary Distillers. He aint.
Carmichael threw away the stump of the cigar he was smoking and lit another.
To get back to this gadget of yours, he resumed indifferently. Maybe it's as good as you say, maybe not. But George Carmichael was always the boy to give a struggling inventor a chance—
Kellog winced. Yeah. Wolf would back anything that promised sure profit and no loss—provided he was given control.
—so here's what I'm willing to do. Your proposition to have me lend you enough to get your machines built is out—the machines might flop, then where'd I be? What we'll do is this—incorporate your whatchamacallit—