“Yes, yes indeed,” McClernand said. He beamed at Peter. He made a mumbly-grumbly noise. Then he clapped his hands, rubbed them together, and said, “Okay, then. Let’s get to work.”
He swiveled in his chair and lifted an object off a shelf. Then, holding it with care between his hands, he gently set it down on his desk. He adjusted it fussily so that it was parallel to the desk’s edge. Then he took his hands away slowly, as if it were carefully balanced. He had been mumbly-grumbling throughout this operation, but now, leaning back in his chair, he stopped and sighed. He gestured to the object with an open hand, smiling. “Peter,” he said, “what do you see in front of you?”
It was a breakfast-cereal box.
Peter was unsure of what to say. There didn’t seem to be many alternatives. “A breakfast-cereal box?”
“Ha!” McClernand said. “Not a wrong answer. But not the right one either. Look again. Tell me what you see.”
What Peter saw was a breakfast-cereal box.
“I … I don’t know,” he said. He smiled. He was a good sport! “I give up!” he said brightly.
McClernand nodded. “I’ll tell you what that is,” he said. And then he leaned forward, fixed his eyes on Peter, and said in a low voice, “It’s money.” Then he leaned back in his chair again, still looking at Peter but now with his former devilish grin.
Money. Right. Yet there was nothing to do but carry on. “Money?” Peter asked. “How so?”
“Pick up the box and tell me what it says on the top flap.”
Peter picked up the box. “‘May fight heart disease.’”
“No! Not that! Further over on the side.”
“Well, there’s a thing here. It says that the company will give your school ten cents for every one of these coupons you send in.”
“Very good,” said McClernand. He stood up and began to pace behind his desk. “I suppose I would be correct in saying that in many cases you can send the cereal manufacturer some box tops and receive a toy in return, wouldn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Peter, let’s think a little about that coupon. It’s just a piece of paper, isn’t it? Now, what—”
“Cardboard, actually.”
“All right, cardboard,” McClernand said with a look of annoyance. “Now, what happens when you send this piece of cardboard to the cereal manufacturer? The manufacturer gives something of value to you, or rather, in certain cases, to a third party as directed by you. Are you with me so far?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Tell me, the piece of paper—or rather, cardboard—does it have any intrinsic value?”
“No.”
“But it represents a claim on an asset, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what does that sound like?” McClernand, still pacing, was taking great pleasure in this use of the Socratic method.
“A stock certificate, a bond, any security, really.”
“Bingo!” McClernand said. “Just think, Peter, there are millions upon millions of boxes of cereal sitting in kitchen cupboards or closets or on kitchen counters at this very moment, each one with a top—a top that is not doing anything for anybody. People don’t want to bother to redeem their box tops. They don’t want the toy, or they don’t care enough about their school.
“What if those very same box tops could be sold for cash? Eh? Do you see where I’m going? If someone could sell a ten-cent box top for five cents, and a school could buy it for five cents and redeem it for ten cents, wouldn’t everyone come out ahead? Or if you needed twelve box tops for a toy, you could buy them for cash, rather than spending the money to buy the extra cereal boxes. You see, don’t you?
“But first, there has to be a box-top market. To create that market somebody has to act as an intermediary. And do you know who that’s going to be? Beeche and Company. And then, once the market is launched and flourishing, the paper will begin to trade on its own, as an investment or speculation. Think of the volume! With the firm taking a little bit on either side, the profits will be phenomenal!
“Of course, there are all sorts of challenges and uncertainties—the Internet auction people; taxes; regs; there’s an option aspect, since most cereal box tops expire; and so forth. But that’s where you come in, laddie.” McClernand smiled at Peter with pride and affection. Then his expression slowly changed to one of mystical transport.
“So,” he said quietly, “that’s the idea. But we aren’t stopping there. No. No. We aren’t stopping there.”
Peter had had a feeling that they weren’t stopping there. The worst thing about all this, he thought, was that he must have sounded just like McClernand to everyone at Thropp’s meeting. Maybe they did belong together.
“It won’t be long,” McClernand was saying, “before banks start to accept cereal box tops for deposit and to make loans accordingly. Securities firms will allow you to write checks based on your holdings. The same way people used discounted paper in the past as money, they’ll start using box tops. You know what will happen, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “The Fed isn’t going to stand back and lose control of the money supply. So they’ll want to step in.” McClernand smiled quiveringly at Peter and continued in almost a whisper.
“It’s only a matter of time before the dollar goes completely in the tank. Everybody knows that the euro is a piece of crap. So you see? You see? The world is going to need a new reserve currency. Gold?” He let out a braying laugh and exclaimed, “Gold? Pathetic! No. No! The cereal
Then his voice grew soft again and even more intense. “All this time, while we are making a market in them, we are slowly accumulating and accumulating and accumulating, so when it all comes together, who will have amassed holdings of cereal box tops that are greater than even those of the United States government? Us, Peter, us! Beeche and Company!” McClernand closed his eyes for a moment of silent meditation, then popped them open with a big grin. “Quite a play, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” said Peter.
Having depressed the appropriate keys and pedals with all his strength, the organist suddenly removed, respectively, his fingers and his feet from them, and his instrument fell mute. The last fortissimo chord of the prelude expanded and refracted in every direction, overlapping itself, shifting its shape and color, until it finally decayed into silence, a silence so deep that it seemed as if the mighty blast had permanently driven all sound from the church. Yet, to Peter, at least, standing in the transept, that silence itself reverberated with one low tone, the sound of one’s own existence, of a windless wood, of the Marabar Caves.
Within seconds, the organ would begin to play again, and the bridesmaids and ushers, and then the flower girls, and finally the bride and her father, would begin their slow march, out of time and out of step, and approach Peter more and more closely. Then they would arrange themselves on either side, and her father would hand Charlotte off. Then they would have the ceremony. And then it would be over. Peter was about to take the most important action of his life. Staring down the aisle, with Charlotte’s and his families and all their friends fuzzily crowding his peripheral vision, he tried to smile, as he thought he ought to do.
The ceremony was taking place on the North Shore of Long Island. The day was muggy; the church was hot. Peter felt uncomfortable in his rented cutaway, pants, waistcoat, tie, and shoes. His discomfort was both physical and mental. The costume was silly, he thought. Rented, it was by definition a contrivance.