Isn’t it?’
`Maureen my sweet, I ordered two outside double staterooms, first class, which were
confirmed and we paid for them. Then two days before sailing the agent telephoned
and offered me this suite at the price we had paid plus a nominal surcharge, one
hundred dollars. Seems the man who had reserved this suite had not been able to
sail. I asked why he had cancelled. Instead of answering he cut the surcharge to
fifty dollars. I asked who had died in that suite and was it contagious. Again
instead of answering he offered to eliminate the surcharge if we would just let the
New York Times and L’Illustration photograph us in our suite-which we did, you
remember.’
`And was it contagious?’
`Not really. The poor fellow jumped out a twenty-storey window – the day after Black
Tuesday:
`Oh! I should keep my mouth shut.’
`Mo darling, this suite was not his home, he was never in it in his life; it is not
haunted. He was just one of many thousands of chumps who became paper-wealthy
gambling on margin. If it will make you feel any better, I can assure you that both
Brian and . I made no secret of our intention of getting out of the market when we
did because we expected the market to collapse before the end of October. Nobody
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would listen.’ Justin shook his head, shrugged.
Brian added, `I almost had to strangle one broker to get him to execute my orders.
He seemed to think it was immoral and possibly illegal to sell when the market was
going steadily up. “Wait till it tops,” he said. “Then sell. You’re crazy to quit at
this point.” I told him that my grandmother had read the tea-leaves and told me that
now was the time to unload. He again said that I was crazy. I told him to execute
those orders at once… or I was going straight to the governors of the Exchange and
have him investigated for bucket shop operations. That really got him angry, so he
sold me out… and then got still angrier when I insisted on a certified cheque. I
took the cheque and cashed it at once. And changed the cash to gold… as I recalled
all too clearly that Ted said that banks would start to go boom.’
I wanted to ask where that gold was now. But I did not.
Zurich is a lovely city, prettier than any I had seen in the United States. The
language there is alleged to be German but it is not the German spoken by my
neighbour from Munich. But I got along fine once I realised that almost everyone
spoke English. Our men were busy; Eleanor and I had a wonderful time being tourists.
Then one day they took us with them and I found myself the surprised owner of a
numbered bank account, for 155.515 grams of fine gold (which I had no trouble
interpreting as one hundred thousand dollars, but it was not called such). Then I
found myself signing powers of attorney over `my’ bank account to Brian and to
Justin, while Eleanor did the same with a similar account. And a limited power of
attorney to someone I had never heard of in Winnipeg, Canada.
We were not placed in that fancy suite because we were high society; we were not.
But the purser was carrying in his safe I do not know how many ounces of gold, most
of which belonged to the Ira Howard Foundation, and some of which belonged,
personally to Brian, and to Justin, and my father. That gold was moved by the Bank
of France from Cherbourg to Zurich, and we rode with it.
In Zurich Brian and Justin, as witnesses and trustees for the Foundation, saw the
shipment opened, saw it counted and weighed, and then deposited with a consortium of
three banks. For the Foundation had taken very seriously Theodore’s warning that Mr
Roosevelt would devalue the dollar, then make it illegal for American citizens to
own or possess gold.
‘Justin,’ I asked, ‘what happens if Governor Roosevelt does not run for the