"I'm afraid it's too true," he said, at length. "Yes, there seems to
be no getting around it. Gold is going to be as plentiful as iron. If
there were not such a flood of it, we might manage, but when they
begin to make trousers buttons out of the same metal that is now
locked and guarded in steel vaults, where will be our standard of
worth? My dear fellow," he continued, impulsively laying his hand on
my arm, "I would as willingly face the end of the world as this that's
coming!"

"You think it so bad, then?" I asked. "But most people will not agree
with you. They will regard it as very good news."

"How can it be good?" he burst out. "What have we got to take the
place of gold? Can we go back to the age of barter? Can we substitute
cattle-pens and wheat-bins for the strong boxes of the Treasury? Can
commerce exist with no common measure of exchange?"

"It does indeed look serious," I assented.

"Serious! I tell you, it is the deluge!"

Thereat he clapped on his hat and hurried across the street to the
office of another celebrated banker.

His premonitions of disaster turned out to be but too well grounded.
The deposits of gold at the south pole were richer than the wildest
reports had represented them. The shipments of the precious metal to
America and Europe soon became enormous--so enormous that the metal
was no longer precious. The price of gold dropped like a falling
stone, with accelerated velocity, and within a year every money centre