Seventy Thirty On the Money

NOTE ▼

Note: Headline: Investors spooked by bear sighting

"So how many are we?" Frank asked, slurping his iced lemonade.

"Twenty-two at last count, I believe," Robert replied. He took Frank's glass and had a sip.

Frank grabbed his glass back. "22? We managed to get twenty others, besides ourselves, to agree to this crazy ..."

"Now, now, my dear Uncle Frank, you know it's not crazy."

"Don't call me your dear Uncle Frank. I'm not your dear Uncle Frank. I'm not your dear anything."

"But you are my Uncle."

"By a third cousin twice removed. I think it doesn't count. Anyway, you got twenty other idiots to ..."

"They're not idiots. They're investors."

"What's the difference?"

"Uncle Frank, listen. They come to the resort. They look at the nice mountains, the nice fir trees, the nice snow caps, the nice rays of the sun glinting in the nice snow caps and they plunk their money down. Oh, and the bulls."

"Bulls? What bulls?"

"These investors like a bullish market. We'll have strategic bull sightings. Bulls. peacefully grazing among the pine cones."

"You nuts or what?"

"It'll be a breeze. They'll plunk their money down, and we - you and I - we'll go seventy-thirty on it."

"You said halves."

"No, Uncle, I said HOOVES. Bulls have hooves. Seventy-thirty on the money."

So off they went, Frank, Robert and twenty hopeful investors, to HONEST FROBER RESORTS, to bask in the comfort of soft beds, soap-bubbled bathtubs and a view that boasted firs, snow caps and grazing bulls.

But Alas!!

Next door (that is, 3 miles away), was TRUTHFUL TRAMBONE RESORTS, and the owner, Truthful Timmy Trambone, wanted the money plunked down for his resort, not theirs. He could offer the same firs, the same snow, the same rays of the same sun. He hadn't any source of peacefully grazing bulls, but he had something more sinister.

He had bears.

Actually, he had the ghosts of bears. Or shall we say, the appearance of the ghosts of bears.

You see, Truthful Timmy Trambone was very very clever. All he did was to take an illegal copy of The Bear Necessities, do a little hocus-pocus with a bit of technology, and Balloo the bear looked like a ghost of himself, dancing. By an ingenious rig up which involved tree houses, wires and jungle vines among the pines, he set it up so that the investors, expecting and awaiting live bulls grazing peacefully, would be confronted by ghost bears dancing non-peacefully at night.

That day, the 20 investors, along with Frank and Robert, took a hike.

No, no, really, they hiked. As in walked the beaten and unbeaten paths. Went where no man has ever been before. (Some women went, leading the bulls. They found some traces of bullshit and followed the trail.)

Deeper into the jungle, higher up the path, dangerously close to the cold, cold snow they walked, guided by the bullshit on the ground.

Finally –

"LOOK, a bull! " they cried, and stood and gasped in awe and remembered to take photos and selfies on their smartphones.

They headed back. They ate a supper of hot soup and good country bread with cheese, and then went to their various rooms to sleep.

In his tree house, Truthful Timmy was waiting. Once all the lights had gone off at HONEST FROBER's, he aimed his projector at an open window.

As it turned out, the window belonged, for that night, to Janet Joyrider, a happy-go-lucky investor who liked dreams and hated nightmares.

So when she saw a bear apparently dancing on her wall, she threw a fit. She threw it so accurately that the fit landed on Robert's bed via his open door, just as she had meant it to.

"Hallo, I didn't go abed with a fit tonight," he thought, rubbing his eyes and staring at the fit. "Someone must've thrown it here."

So, he went to investigate. It was easy, Janet Joyrider was screaming.

Robert entered her room and saw the dancing bear. He knew at once what it was, since it was a trick he had once been planning to play himself.

"It's only a projection, Madam," he hastened to assure her.

"You mean it is projected that the market is going to be bearish and not bullish?"

Janet got out of bed and woke everyone else. All 22 of them, some in pajamas, some in nighties, some in nothing at all (let us hastily shield our eyes in modesty) met in the dining room.

Janet Joyride told them of the dancing bears on her wall.

They agreed this wasn't good.

Only stopping to throw on dressing gowns and slippers (and underwear, in some cases, but we are delicate and don't speak of such in mixed company) they marched to Truthful Timmy's resort.

"What'd I tell you?" Frank asked, waving his mug of hot chocolate about.

Robert took the mug, had a hearty swallow, and returned it.

"Relax, my dear Uncle Frank."

"How can I relax? That naked lady walked out before I could have any fun!"

"You're not worrying about ..."

"Well, you were going to give me only thirty per cent. I'm not going to waste worry on that. Shall I worry about the news headline tomorrow, instead? About Investors Shocked By Bear Sightings? I'm not getting any money!"

"Ah but you'll get it, Uncle. At a bit of a discount, but you'll get it."

"Get it?"

"Truthful Timmy and I are buddies since our youthfulest childhood. We have this whole thing planned. They'll plunk money on him, I'll get half, you'll get thirty per cent of that."

"Thirty per cent of fifty per cent. Hmmmm. I might've preferred the naked lady. But still, you take what you got. Hey, I didn't mean my hot chocolate. Gimme back my hot chocolate."