Never has "the money game" been more deliciously exposed than in this ingenious comedy-satire. Grand Fenwick's secret weapon this time is its Grand Pinot chewing gum. At the conclusion of its victorious war against the United States, the duchy had lodged manufacturing rights to the product in an American company, where they had lain dormant. But now the anti-smoking campaign is in full tilt, gum sales have boomed, and Grand Fenwick receives a check, unheralded and unwanted, for one million dollars-its 40 per cent share of the first annual profit. What consternation! For surely nothing good can result from the influx of those unneeded dollars into the tidy economy of Grand Fenwick (15 square miles; 5000 souls). And indeed the consternation is well founded. One year later, the ills of inflation already afflicting every Grand Fenwickian, high or low, Conservative or Labor, the profit check is not one million dollars, but ten million. Now only the benign Gloriana XII can save her people, and inspiration is equal to the perilous moment. Determining to lose the money by investing it on Wall Street, she closes her eyes-a classic method-and jabs at the financial page with her embroidery needle. Then, having airmailed off to the States a purchase order for stock in the company her needle has skewered, she settles back comfortably and confidently to her embroidery. Clearly Gloriana XII is no financial genius, and, of course, her scheme goes awry. But just how so is a matter for Mr. Wibberley's risible ingenuity and for his readers. Suffice it to say here that mergers merge, conglomerates conglomerate, and in due course all the money markets of the world begin to wobble. For what if Grand Fenwick should liquidate its billions-yes, they're billions now-of American assets and demand payment in gold?
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