Anything Goes

information out of all of them. There’s some reason they’re all being so secretive.“
    “How do we go about making them spill the beans?“
    “Oh, Robert, with all your charm, you could get anything out of anyone. You work on Cousin Claude and I’ll keep asking Mimi questions. I hate to do it because it upsets her so, but we have to know what she knows.“
    “I guess it’s a start,“ Robert said.
    “And there’s something else,“ Lily said. “I want to see this place where the boat sank. How can we do that?“
    “Why do we need to?“
    “Just to get the feel of it ourselves. I don’t think you can solve a mystery without even seeing the scene of the crime.“
    “You’ve been reading those silly crime novels again, haven’t you? Lily, we just went to the salvage yard to ‘get the feel’ of the boat and it wasn’t any help at all.“
    “Still... I want to see the island. We don’t have to get close to it. Just look at it.“
    “Okey-dokey, I’ll see what I can do.”
    When they got home, Mimi had taken it upon herself to haul all the rugs outdoors and beat them that day and Lily didn’t get a chance to chat with her.
    Mr. and Mrs. Prinney had a guest they insisted on her meeting. It was one of their son-in-laws who had dropped by to fetch a recipe his wife needed from her mother. He was a stork-like man with a big, gap-toothed grin under a shaggy moustache. “Charles Locke,“ he introduced himself.
    “Charles is a teacher,“ Mr. Prinney said. “At Columbia University,“ he added proudly. “He and our daughter Rosalyn are thinking of moving into our old house in Voorburg. Charles would stay in a boardinghouse at Columbia during the week and Mrs. Prinney and I would have a daughter and the kiddies close by.“
    “What do you teach, Mr. Locke?“ Lily asked. “Economic theory.“
    “Then can you tell us what has happened to our country?“
    “I probably could, but the important thing is what to do about it. Which isn’t being done.”
    Lily sat down at one end of the library table and Robert sat at the other end, pulling a deck of cards from a little drawer beneath. Lily asked, “What should be done? How can this ever be fixed?“ She thought of the family at the garbage dump.
    “Are you really interested?“ Charles Locke asked.
    Lily nodded.
    “Then I’ll explain it as I do to my freshman students. Picture a little square. Inside it is a family. Mother, Dad, the children. Dad loses his job. Mother has to take in laundry so the children can be fed and Dad, to save his pride, starts growing corn on their land. Around this little square are other little squares. Other families—relations and neighbors. And they all form a bigger square. And there are lots of these bigger squares, which form the various states. And it’s all contained in a huge square that is the United States. But the border of the huge square is flimsy. Deliberately so. It can stretch and contract so the squares within squares inside it can shift and change, grow and shrink.”
    Lily could visualize what he meant, but couldn’t see what he was getting at. “Is that bad or good?“
    “Both,“ Charles Locke said, stroking his moustache. “Depending on circumstances. In good times it’s good. The federal government stays out of the smaller squares’ business except for necessities. Like keeping a standing army and navy for protection. And regulating with a light hand a very few industries which involve all the inside squares. This is the Jeffersonian theory of economics and government control. Horribly simplified, of course.
    “But now we have bad times,“ he said. “Remember the original family square? Mother’s taking in laundry. Father is raising just enough corn to use for the family and sell a bit to buy other necessities. Then some of the other families and relatives have bad times. They can’t afford to send their laundry to Mother. She stops making money. And the price of corn has fallen so low that it’s worth less than it costs to grow, so Father can’t make money to buy more seed.”
    And they move to the garbage dump, Lily thought.
    “Jeffersonian theory, of which President Hoover is a proponent, says the community and state must care for its own people. And private charities and industries are obligated to help. That it isn’t the duty of the federal government.“
    “But...“ Lily started to say.
    “In good times, as I say, they’re right,“ Charles rolled on. Private