On their way home he pointed out a fine building, ornamented with a “To Let” sign in the window.  “There’s a place I used to own, Thompson,” he said.  “Belongs to a friend of mine, young Post.  One of the best families—­but, poor fellow, he’s in trouble now.”  He dismissed the subject with a benevolent sigh.  “Would you like to go in and look at it?  The caretaker will show it to you.  He’ll think you’re a prospective buyer.  You needn’t tell him so, but then again you needn’t tell him any different.  There’s no harm and it’s well worth seeing.”

Thompson, nothing loth, agreed.  It was a fine house, as Mitchell had guessed.

“Gracious!” said Steve, when the inspection was over.  “What’s such a house worth?”

“I sold it for forty thousand.  It’s worth more now.”

Steve gazed at him wide-eyed.  “My!  I shouldn’t have thought it worth that much.” (It was, in fact, worth a great deal more.)

“It’s the ground that makes it cost so,” explained Mitchell.  “That’s why the value has increased.  The house itself is not worth as much as when I had it, but land values are coming up by leaps and bounds.  Young man, the ground valuation alone of the six square miles adjoining Central Park is more than the value of all real estate in the great commonwealth of Missouri.  And it is going higher every year.”

“I don’t understand it,” said Steve, much impressed.

“Do you understand the philosophy of an artesian well?  Yes?  Then you understand this.  Every farm cleared, every acre planted, every mine developed, every baby born, enhances the value of all city property—­and New York’s got the biggest standpipe.  The back country soaks up the rain and it is delivered conveniently at our doors through, underground channels, between the unleaking walls that confine its flow; our price on the surplus you have to sell and our price on the necessities you buy.  Every city taps this flow, be the pipe large or small; and as I said before, New York has the biggest gusher.

“We’ve got the money.  So you may do the work and we allow you to get enough to sustain life, and just as little more as possible.  Sell at our price, buy at our price—­we’ve got you coming and going.  You can’t get away.

“You’re poor, you take what you can get to pay your debts.  That keeps down prices on what you sell.  You’ve got families, you’ve got to play.  Yes, yes, quite right, the rules are not entirely fair; we’ll revise them to-morrow, maybe, some time.  Let you do it?  Tut, tut, no, no!  Why, you object to ’em!  That won’t do at all.  Let the rules be revised by their friends and beneficiaries, to-morrow, next day, by and by; busy to-day, stockholders’ meeting, dividend declared, good-by!  You’re virtually peons.  Fourth of July, elections and war-times you’re the sovereign people, Tommy this and Tommy-rot; but for all practical purposes you’re peons.