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         THE STRANGE STORY OF

          JOHN JONES' DOLLAR

       By Harry Stephen Keeler


    0n the 201st day of the year 3285
A.D., the professor of history at the
University of Terra seated himself in
front of his Chromo-Visaphone and
prepared to deliver his daily lecture
to his class, the members of which
resided in different portions of the
earth.

    The instrument before which he
seated himself was very like a great
window sash, on account of the fact
that there were three or four hundred
frosted glass squares visible. In a
space at the center, not occupied by
any of these glass squares, was a
dark, oblong area and a ledge holding
a piece of chalk. And above this area
was a peculiar-looking microphone,
suspended by two hair-like springs,
toward which the professor directed
his subsequent remarks.

    In order to assure himself that
it was time to press the button which
would notify the members of the class
in history to approach their local
Chromo-Visaphones, the professor
withdrew from his vest pocket, a tiny
contrivance no larger than a quarter,
which he held to his ear. Upon moving
a tiny switch attached to the
instrument, a metallic voice, seeming
to come from somewhere in space,
repeated mechanically: "Fifteen
o'clock and one minute -- fifteen
o'clock and one minute -- fifteen
o'clock and one min --" Quickly the
professor replaced the instrument in
his vest pocket and pressed a button
at the side of the Chromo-Visaphone.

    As though in answer to the
summons, the frosted glass squares
began, one by one, to show -- in
absolutely perfect hue and tint and
color and shade -- the faces and
shoulders of a peculiar type of young
men; young men with great bulging
foreheads, bald, toothless, and
wearing immense square horn
spectacles. One square, however,
still remained empty. On noticing
this, a look of irritation passed
over the professor's countenance.

    But, upon seeing that every other
glass square but this one was filled
up, he commenced his talk.

    "I am pleased, gentlemen, to see
you all posted at your local Chromo-
Visaphones this afternoon. I have
prepared my lecture today upon a
subject which is, perhaps, of more
economic interest than historical.
Unlike the previous lectures, my talk
will not confine itself to the
happenings of a few years, but will
embrace the course of ten centuries,
the ten centuries, in fact, which
terminated three hundred years before
the present date. My lecture will be
an exposition of the effects of the
John Jones Dollar, originally
deposited in the dawn of
civilization, or, to be more precise,
in the year 1935 -- just thirteen
hundred years ago. This John Jon--"

    At this point in the professor's
lecture, the frosted glass square
which hitherto had shown no image,
now filled up. Sternly he gazed at
the head and shoulders that had just
appeared.

    "B262H72476Male, you are late to
class again. What excuse have you to
offer today?"

    From the hollow cylinder emanated
a shrill voice, while the red lips of
the picture on the glass square moved
in unison with the words:

    "Professor, you will perceive by
consulting your class book, that I
have recently taken up my residence
near the North Pole. For some reason,
radio communication between the
Central Energy Station and all points
north of 89 degrees was cut off a
while ago, on account of which fact I
could not appear in the Chromo-
Visaphone, Hence --"

    "Enough, sir," roared the
professor. "Always ready with an
excuse, B262H72476Male. I shall
immediately investigate your tale."

    From his coat pocket the
professor withdrew an instrument
which, although supplied with an
earpiece and a mouthpiece, had no
wires whatever, attached. Raising it
to his lips, he spoke:

    "Hello. Central Energy Station,
please." A pause ensued. "Central
Energy Stations This is the Professor
of History at the University of Terra
speaking. One of my students informs
me that the North Pole region was out
of communication with the Chromo-
Visaphone System this morning. Is
that statement true? I would --"

    A voice, apparently from nowhere,
spoke into the professor's ear.
"Quite true, Professor. A train of
our ether waves accidentally fell
into parallelism with a train of
waves of identical wave-length from
the Venus Sub-station. By the most
peculiar mischance, the two trains
happened to be displaced with
reference to each other one half of a
wave length, with the unfortunate
result that the points of negative
maximum amplitude of one coincided
with the points of positive maximum
amplitude of the other. Hence the two
wave trains nullified each other and
communication ceased for one hundred
and eighty-five seconds -- until the
earth had revolved far enough to
throw them out of parallelism."

    "Ah, thank you," replied the
professor. He dropped his instrument
into his coat pocket and gazed in the
direction of the glass square whose
image had so aroused his ire. "I
apologise, B262H72476Male, for my
suspicions as to your veracity -- but
I had in mind several former
experiences." He shook a warning
forefinger. "I shall now resume my
talk.

    "A moment ago, gentlemen, I
mentioned the John Jones Dollar. Some
of you who have just enrolled with
the class will undoubtedly say to
yourselves: 'What is a John Jones?
What is a Dollar?'

    "In the early days, before the
present scientific registration of
human beings was instituted by the
National Eugenics Society, man went
around under a crude, multi-
reduplicative system of nomenclature.
Under this system, there were
actually more John Joneses than there
are calories in a British Thermal
Unit. But there was one John Jones,
in particular, living in the
Twentieth Century, to whom I shall
refer in my lecture. Not much is
known of his personal life -- except
that he was an ardent socialist -- a
bitter enemy, in fact, of the private
ownership of wealth.

    "Now, as to the Dollar. In this
day, when the Psycho-Erg, a
combination of the Psych, the unit of
esthetic satisfaction, and the Erg,
the unit of mechanical energy, is
recognized as the true unit of value,
it seems difficult to believe that in
the Twentieth Century and for more
than ten centuries thereafter, the
Dollar, a metallic circular disk, was
being passed from hand to hand in
exchange for the essentials of life.

    "But, nevertheless, such was the
case. Man exchanged his mental or
physical energy for these Dollars. He
then re-exchanged the Dollars for
sustenance, raiment, pleasure, and
operations for the removal of the
vermiform appendix.

    "A great many individuals,
however, deposited their Dollars in a
stronghold called a bank. These banks
invested the Dollars in loans and
commercial enterprises, with the
result that every time the earth
traversed the solar ecliptic, the
banks compelled each borrower to
repay or acknowledge as due the
original, plus six one-hundredths of
that loan. And to the depositor, the
banks paid three one-hundredths of
the deposited Dollars for the use of
the disks. This was known as three
per cent, or bank interest.

    "Now the safety of Dollars, when
deposited in banks, was not
absolutely assured to the depositor.
At times, the custodians of these
Dollars were wont to appropriate them
and proceed to portions of the earth
sparsely inhabited and accessible
with difficulty. Again, the banks, at
times, tiring, presumably, of
banking, failed to open their doors,
facetiously notifying their clients
that they were 'frozen". I say
'facetiously' because it is obvious
that a bank in a tropical or semi-
tropical clime could not suffer a
calorific change amounting to a
downright glaciation.

    But, be that as it may, they did
not thereafter open up, and many of
the Dollars deposited therein
automatically ceased to exist, due to
the vagaries of higher accounting.
And, at other times, nomadic groups
known as 'yeggmen' visited the banks,
opened the vaults by force, and
departed, carrying with them the
contents.

    "But to return to our subject. In
the year 1935, one of these numerous
John Joneses performed an apparently
inconsequential action which caused
the name of John Jones to go down
forever in history. What did he