‘Well, when you put it that way -‘
‘I do put it that way and let's have no more nonsense about what I owe the Foundation. Not until you've counted up what the Foundation owes me. I still promise to pass on data as needed. Right now, the Foundation should get heavily into Douglas-Martin Sunpower screens, and if you don't know about them, see your files of The Economist or the Wall Street Journal or the Toronto Star. After that, the hottest new investment as soon as it opens up will be rolling roads and real estate near them.'
‘Rolling roads?'
‘Damn it, Justin, I know Theodore mentioned them in that rump meeting of the board on Saturday 29 June, 1918, as I took notes and typed them out and gave you a copy, as well as the original to Judge Sperling. Look it up.' So clear back in 1952 I showed Justin where the principal roadtowns would be, as told to me by Theodore. ‘Watch for them, get in early. Enormous profits to the early birds. But get rid of all railroad stock.'
At that time I decided not to bother Justin with my ‘Prudence Penny' venture - not when he was feeling bruised on his macho bump. Instead, I had taken it up with Eleanor. Entrusting a secret to Eleanor was safer than telling it to Jesus.
‘Prudence Penny, The Housewife Investor' started out as a weekly column in country newspapers of the sort we had had in Thebes, the Lyle County Leader. I always offered the first six weeks free. If a trial period stirred any interest, a publisher could continue it for a very small fee - those small-town weeklies can't pay more than peanuts; there was no sense in trying to make money on it at first.
In fact my purpose was not to make money. Or only indirectly.
I set the format in 1953 with the first column and never varied it:
Prudence Penny THE HOUSEWIFE INVESTOR
TODAY'S DEFINTTION: (Each column I gave at least one definition. Money people have their own language. If you don't know their special words, you can't play in their poker game. Some of the words I defined for my readers were: common stock, preferred stock, bonds, municipal bonds, debentures, margin, selling short, puts and calls, living trust, joint tenancy, tenants in common, float, load, points, deficiency judgement, call money, prime rate, gold standard, flat money, easement, fee simple, eminent domain, public domain, copyright, patent, etc., etc.
(Trivial? To you, perhaps. If so, you did not need ‘Prudence Penny'. But to most people these elementary terms might as well be ancient Greek. So I offered one definition each column, in one-syllable Anglo-Saxon words that could be misunderstood only by a professor of English.)
Next I offered a discussion of something in the news of the day that might affect investing. Since everything, from weather to elections to killer bees, affects investing, this was easy. If I could include a little juicy gossip, I did. But not anything hurtful, or cruel, and I was most careful not to offer anything actionable.
My next item each week was TODAY'S RECOMMENDED INVESTMENT. This was a sure thing, based directly or indirectly on Theodore's predictions. The same recommendation might be repeated many times, alternated with others from the same source.
I always closed with Prudence Penny's Portfolio:
Ladies, we started this portfolio with one thousand dollars ($1000) in January 1953. If you invested the same amount and at the same time, investing and changing investments just as we did, your portfolio is now worth $4823.17.
If you invested $10.000, your portfolio is now worth $48.231.70.
If you invested $100.000, today your portfolio is worth $48217.00.
But it is never too late to start prudent investing with Penny. You can start today with $4823.17 (or any multiple or fraction), which you then place as follows:
(List of investments that add up to $4823.17.)
If you want to see for yourself the details of how a thousand dollars grows to (current figure) in only (fill in) years and (blank) months, send ($1.oo, $2.50, $4.00 - the price went steadily up) to Pinch-Penny Publications, Suite 8600, Harriman Tower, New York, NY HKL030 (that being a drop box that caused mail to be routed, eventually, to Eleanor's stooge in Toronto) or buy it at your local bookstore: The Housewife's Guide to Thrifty Investing by Prudence Penny.
The hugger-mugger about the address was intended to keep the Securities Exchange Commission from learning that ‘Prudence Penny' was a director of Harriman Industries. The SEC takes a jaundiced view of ‘Inside Information'. So far as I could tell, it would matter not at all to them that my advice was truly beneficial to anyone who followed it. In fact, that might get me beheaded even more quickly.
The column spread from country weeklies to city dailies and did make money after the first year, and quite a lot of money in the thirteen years that I wrote it. Women read it and followed it - so my mail indicated - but I think even more men read it, not to follow my advice, but to try to figure out how this female bear could waltz at all.
I knew that I had succeeded when one day George Strong quoted ‘Prudence Penny' to me.
My ultimate purpose was not to make money and not to impress anyone but to establish a reputation that let me write a special column in April 11964, one headed ‘THE MOON BELONGS TO EVERYONE - but the first Moonship will belong to Harriman Industries.'
I advised them to hang onto their Prudence Penny portfolio... but to take every other dime they could scrape up and bet it on the success of D. D. Harriman's great new venture, placing a man on the Moon.
From then on ‘Prudence Penny' always had something to say about space travel and Harriman Industries in every column. I freely admitted that space was a long-term investment (and I continued to recommend other investments, all backed by Theodore's predictions) but I kept on pounding away at the notion that untold riches awaited those farsighted investors who got in early in space activities and hung on. Don't buy on margin, don't indulge in profit-taking - buy Harriman stock outright, put it away in your safety deposit box and forget it - your grandchildren will love you.
In the spring of 1965 I moved my household to the Broadmoor Hotel south of Colorado Springs because Mr Harriman was building his Moonship on Peterson Field. In 1952 I had tried half-heartedly to drop my lease in Kansas City after Brian had taken Priscilla and Donald back to Dallas (another story and no t a good one). But George had outflanked me. Title to that house was in George, not Harriman and Strong, not Harriman Industries. When I told him that I no longer needed a four-bedroom house (counting the maid's room), he asked me to keep it, rent free.
I pointed out that, if I was to become his paid mistress, it wasn't enough, but if I was to continue the pretence of being a respectable woman, it was too much. He said, all right, what was the going rate for mistresses? - he would double it.
So I kissed him and took him to bed and we compromised. The house was his and he would put his driver and wife in the house, and I could stay in it any time I wished... and the resident couple would take care of Princess Polly.
George had spotted my weak point. I had once subjected this little cat to the trauma of losing her Only Home; I grabbed this means of avoiding doing it to her again.
But I did take an apartment at the Plaza, moved my most necessary books there; got my mail there, and occasionally took Polly there - subjecting her to the indignity of a litter box, true, but she did not fuss. (The new clay pellets were a vast improvement over sand or soil.) Moving back and forth this short distance got her used to a carrying cage and to being away from home now and then. Eventually she got to be a true travelling cat, dignified and at home in the best hotels, a sophisticated guest who would never think of scratching the furniture. This made it much easier for Elijah and Charlene to take vacations or go elsewhere if George needed them elsewhere.