"I've just been propositioned by two gentlemen who would be complimented if you called them prostitutes," I told her. "The only honest man I've met today was that first little guy. All he wanted me to do was to help reorganize the Black Market. Who's left now?"
"There's only this one man who calls himself Charles G. Smith and has been waiting some time. He looks like a crank. Shall I give him a hand-out and tell him to go away?"
I shook my head. "I can't take much more of the current brand of patriotism."
Charles G. Smith was a small, wispy man, with a protruding Adam's apple, buck teeth and shabby clothes. He ignored my outstretched hand and advanced on me, with a glittering eye.
"Mr. Tompkins," he announced, in a curiously deep, velvety voice, "you have made millions of dollars that you must soon leave behind you. You have invested years of your life in collecting and keeping those dollars—little disks of metal, little slips of paper. What have you invested in the only thing you will be permitted to take with you when you leave?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean your immortal soul, Mr. Tompkins, your immortal soul," said Mr. Charles G. Smith.
"Oh Lord! A religious crank!" I exclaimed.
"Naturally," he agreed proudly. "I'd rather be crazy about God than nuts about money. Why not?"
I looked at him with growing respect. "Why not, indeed?" I thought.