I had not thought of the imminence of this disaster.

"I was not aware, Mr. Ballard," I said. "At the present moment Jerry
doesn't know a dollar from a nickel."

He opened his eyes wide and examined me as though he feared he had not
heard correctly or as though it were blasphemy, heresy that I was
uttering.

"You mean that he doesn't know the value and uses of money?"

"So far as I am aware," I replied coolly, "he has never seen a piece
of money in his life."

"All wrong, all wrong, Canby. This won't do at all. He had his
arithmetic, percentage and so forth?"

"Yes. But money doesn't interest him. Can you see any reason why it
should?"

Again the frown and level gaze.

"And what had you planned for him?" he asked. He did not intend to be
satirical perhaps. He was merely worldly.

"I thought when the time came he might be permitted to choose a
vocation for himself. In the meanwhile--"

"A vocation!" he snapped. "Isn't the controlling interest in a
transcontinental line of railroad vocation enough? To say nothing of