“I cannot see any good in it,” Margaret persisted. “No one seems to have the things he buys or sells. I don't understand it.”
“That is because you are a woman, if you will pardon me for saying it. Men don't need to have things in hand; business is done on faith and credit, and when a transaction is over, they settle up and pay the difference, without the trouble of transporting things back and forth.”
“I know you are chaffing me, Mr. Morgan. But I should call that betting.”
“Oh, there is a risk in everything you do. But you see it is really paying for a difference of knowledge or opinion.”
“Would you buy stocks that way?”
“What way?”
“Why, agreeing to pay for your difference of opinion, as you call it, not really having any stock at all.”
“I never did. But I have bought stocks and sold them pretty soon, if I could make anything by the sale. All merchants act on that principle.”
“Well,” said Margaret, dimly seeing the sophistry of this, “I don't understand business morality.”
“Nobody does, Margaret. Most men go by the law. The Golden Rule seems to be suspended by a more than two-thirds vote.”